Legacy V
by ruth baulding
Summary: *continuation of Lineage/ Legacy AU* Book 5: as a mortally injured Qui-Gon hovers between life and death, a newly liberated Anakin Skywalker struggles to find equilibrium within the Jedi community, and the Sentinels harbor a cunning and seductive prisoner in the Temple's depths, Obi-Wan finds that not every homecoming is a journey's end. Chapter 19: Crossroads
1. Chapter 1

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

_**Homecoming**_

Like a weary dove winging back to its nestled sanctuary at some quiet treetop's pinnacle, the Republic shuttle skimmed past Corsucant's reddening dusk, its dark ribbons of pollutant smoke, its swarms of air traffic, and lighted within the welcoming and open embrace of the Jedi Temple's south-facing upper level hangar bay.

Droid mechanics hastened to moor the meteor-pocked, filth-crusted vessel to its assigned docking space, the automatic pressure valves released opaque and hissing spouts of gas, of instantly crystallized liquid, the radiation dampers whined out long, descending arpeggios as the drives powered down. A hush fell over those waiting upon the decks, for this homecoming brought with it neither the pomp of victory, nor the solemnity of defeat. The Force tolled neither an anthem nor a dirge, merely beating out the hollow syncopation of passing time until the ramp finally lowered.

Torbb Bakk'ile emerged first, ducking beneath the hatchway, her glossy tail of black hair falling over one improbably broad shoulder. The stern Knight caught the eye of those waiting below, summoned or invited assistance with an unspoken word, then disappeared back into the ship's dim interior.

Contrapuntal to the gravity of this apparition, a child's clear sounded from within, an urgent treble brimming with curiosity.

"… Are we there _now_?"

To which a young man's voice, briskly clipped, and hovering in tone somewhere between humor and vexation, replied. "_No…_ now we are _here."_

Bant Eerin broke into a jog, dashing up the open boarding ramp; hard on her heels followed Senior Healer Ben To Li and two orderlies propelling an enclosed medical stasis capsule.

"Obi!" the Mon Cal softly squealed, discovering her long-anticipated and much-missed friend in the aft hold. Her intended embrace, however, was rebuffed by a single alarmed and cautionary look; Obi-Wan's eyes flicked sideways and down, resting briefly upon a wholly unexpected and markedly grubby urchin clutching his left hand and staring at the young healer with mouth agape.

Bant awkwardly transformed her spontaneous display of affection into a polite bow.

"Bant," the young Knight said, tightly. "This is Anakin Skywalker. He will be staying at the Temple as a… guest."

Ben To shouldered past them, already fingering his pointed beard in bemusement. Once over the threshold of the passenger compartment, he hissed out some exotic imprecation or another, then barked orders at his assistants.

_Guest._ Bant's globular eyes blinked, then narrowed. "You didn't – "

"Please, Bant. I need to…." With a helpless gesture, Obi-Wan indicated the bustling cabin behind him. Pain spiked in the Force, a sharp reminder of time and place, circumstance and duty.

The Mon Cal suppressed her burning curiosity, her swiftly burgeoning concern. "It is an honor to meet you," she addressed the unfamiliar boy. "Will you please come with me?"

The child cast an apprehensive and uncertain look upward at his interim mentor, as though dubious of his new acquaintance's credentials.

"It's all right, Anakin. Bant is one of my dearest friends. You can trust her."

"But.. what about Mister Qui-Gon?"

"He is in good hands now. Go…. I'll come find you later. Bant will take good care of you in the meantime. I promise."

Bant found the boy's small hand transferred from Obi-Wan's grasp into her own webbed hand, like the leash of an akk pup summarily thrust into the possession of a new owner. With the barest grimace of apology and gratitude, the young Jedi dipped his head and disappeared into the cabin beyond, leaving his 'dearest friend' effectively tethered to a complete stranger.

Mouth puckered, the Mon Cal healer rallied to the occasion, since she had no choice left in the matter. "Welcome to Coruscant, Anakin," she beamed. "I'll have you come back to the Halls of Healing with me before anything else…. Is this your first time away from your homeworld?"

It was an innocent question, one fueled by rapid calculations and guesses about vaccinations, interplanetary epidemics, relative metabolic rates, allergies, dietary restrictions, space-lag and artificial grav sickness, atmospheric differentials, the thousand-fold demands put upon a growing organic body unseasoned by years of travel between worlds – but it proved the wrong thing to say.

"Uh huh," the boy answered, hiccupping around a brutally swallowed sob.

Bant scowled at the hatchway, willing the Force to bore a smoldering hole through Obi-Wan's _gundark_-_thick_, conniving, insensitive, presumptuous, oblivious skull. Then she squeezed Anakin's hand gently and led him away. "It will be all right. Come on. I'll show you some things on the way."

Distraction had to be worth something.

"Okay," her new companion sniffed. He fell into step beside her, blue eyes drinking in the hangar bay from roof girders to decks with a marveling, fanatic light. The sight of so many _machines_ in one place seemed to drive away his pang of nostalgia on a scudding wind of new enthusiasm. "This place is _wizard," _ he breathed , trotting energetically along at the Mon Cal's heels.

"I'm glad you like it," she answered, leading the way through the interior exit and into the Temple proper.

* * *

Senior Healer Ben To Li remained stooped over Qui-Gon Jinn's pallid and inert form, one hand delicately spanning the Jedi master's temples, the other hovering over his ravaged chest. "What in the holy hells…." the revered medic muttered, spine stiffening perceptibly as he invisibly probed his patient's condition. "Kenobi."

Obi-Wan acknowledged the curt greeting with a respectful nod, though Ben To remained facing away, his silvering queue snaking down his back, thin shoulders hunched forward in concentration. "Master Li."

"What happened?" the healer barked, leaning yet closer over Qui-Gon's corpse-like face.

The young Knight swallowed down every trace of traitorous emotion. "Lightsaber wound," he grunted.

Ben To craned his head over one shoulder, skewering his tongue-tied companion with a sarcastic glare. "I'd managed to get that far on my own, thank you." His mien softened, as glittering dark eyes raked the younger Jedi head to toe and settled upon his blood-spattered tunic. "…..But this man is neither dead nor alive."

In answer, Obi-Wan offered him the empty cylinder form a pressure hypo. "It's… a vitals blocker. He was… returning to the Force. " A terse nod indicated the extravagant injury, the place where a plasma blade had passed clean through Qui-Gon's chest, just below the heart. "I .. acted as I saw fit."

Ben To gravely accepted the empty cartridge, squinting at its labeling. His perspicacious gaze narrowed, returning to his companion. "As the Force prompted you?"

Silence. The young Knight exhaled, fingers of one hand curling about his 'saber's hilt. His eyes dropped to the decks. "I take responsibility for the decision. It… " A tightening of the muscles about his mouth; a clenching of jaw muscles.

Ben To pocketed the mysterious vial and nodded to his two assistants, waving a hand in permission. They moved forward, began cautiously transferring the limp, unresponsive body to the waiting stasis capsule.

Obi-Wan looked up when a gnarled hand gripped his arm. "Master ," he whispered. "Can you… do anything?"

A textured sigh. Ben To twisted his beard between forefinger and thumb, pensively. "I know next to nothing about these _vital blocker _compounds – but I do know this: they all have a half-life. Its effect is not indefinite. Before that expiration date, I must discover how to reverse the suspension – and pull off a healing miracle. The internal damage must be extensive. "

The younger man nodded, tightly. "Of course. It will be as the Force wills."

A second hand grasped his other arm, as though to hold him steady in place. "Indeed it shall.. but Master Jinn would be a grievous loss to all of us. There is no dishonor in accepting this, too."

Obi-Wan's gaze slid sideways, evading direct scrutiny. He favored the bulkhead with a melting scowl.

Ben To's voice dropped to a conciliatory murmur. "I can promise nothing; but where the Force dwells, there also dwells hope."

The barest of nods, a mute surrender to destiny more telling in its own way than a trumpet's brassy proclamation.

The healer sighed, and waved his somber companions out the hatchway ahead of him. They propelled the stasis capsule down the ramp and headed off across the decks at a solemn pace.

" Come see me when the Council is done flaying your hide off, young one," Ben To urged the younger man. "I can see you need it." And then he too departed, hurrying after the two orderlies and their ominous burden.

TOrbb Bakk'ile appeared from the cockpit hatchway, on cue. "Well," she demanded bluntly. "You ready for a grilling, brother?"

Obi-Wan cocked one brow and snorted.

His companion adjusted her vast synth leather tabards and straightened her spine. "The Council wants us both, now, without delay," she informed him, matter-of-factly. "I'm not gifted with premonitions, but I'd say we're _bugsquat,_ to quote your little friend's favorite idiom."

"Yes, well," the junior Knight darkly muttered, "This is where the fun begins."

Torbb's comradely shoulder-slap nearly overbalanced him. "Forward unto glory, then!" she proclaimed, leading the way down the ramp at a falsely confident saunter.

Obi-Wan smiled grimly and followed at a sedate pace, well aware that Torbb's bravado was a façade constructed as much for her own benefit as his; they both bore heavy burdens from the last mission, a weight of guilt and uncertainty of the future that could not be equitably nor efficiently distributed among two pair of shoulders, however so broad.

The Force had not granted either of them an easy homecoming.

* * *

"….and I got to sit up in the cockpit for like a whole lot of time, too, especially when we were coming down into atmosphere and _whoa!_ This whole planet is like one giant city only I've never seen buildings so tall and so many all crammed together in one place they look like the sandstone columns out by Hell's Gauntlet only taller and more crowded and stuff and all the ships and gondolas and airbuses and magtrains and hovertaxis and speeders and I bet it would be _totally rugged _ to race here on Coruscant like podracing only with more obstacles and stuff only I think it would be even better to learn how to fly a real spaceship I can't wait to learn someday I already can pilot a pod and plenty of other stuff I bet a starfighter would be pretty choobazzi to pilot, and – "

The boy had to pause for breath just below the statue of Master Seva gracing the southside stairwell in the Hall of Concordant Unities. He sucked in a great lungful of cool, incense-tinted air and looked up and up at the magnificent bronzium sculpture levitating its golden orb.

"Whoa!"he exclaimed, the spectacle side-swiping his attention onto another tangent as effectively as a six air-lane pile-up in the commercial district. "…Why's it so _big?"_

Bant Eerin's mouth puckered in bewilderment at this question; Anakin had not allowed her a word in edgewise for ten solid minutes – and then at the first opportunity to invite her input, he blurted out a deceptively simple question about the Temple's sacrosanct artistic embellishments. She had not, perhaps, so directly considered the significance of the colossal scale on which much the Temple was constructed; doubly nettled by the fact she had never deeply reflected upon this before, and by the near-certainty that Obi-Wan, blast him, would have had a glib and erudite answer ready to hand, she cast about for a suitable reply. "Ummm," she improvised, "Perhaps to symbolize the relative importance of the individual compared to the tradition. The Order is millennia old, and the Force is without age or origin; the big statue reminds us that our own ambitions and achievements are humble in comparison."

The explanation pleased her, and resonated instinctually.

Anakin's nose scrunched. "But that guy was an individual too, right?"

Flustered, the Mon Cal unconsciously flared her vestigial gills. "Well, yes.. Master Seva was a great scholar and sage, and a peerless warrior. However, the point is not to magnify his personality, but rather his dedication and wisdom…. The Jedi have a saying: _we come to serve."_

But the boy was still not satisfied. "I thought Jedi were _heroes,_ not servants, " he insisted.

Bant nodded. Now they were getting somewhere. "The greatest heroes _are_ servants," she pointed out. "As are the greatest leaders."

Anakin shrugged, consigning her statement to the nebulous realm of _grown-up bombast._ "Okay," he agreed, diplomatically. " But _ I _ think the very, very greatest hero and leader of all would have to be _free."_


	2. Chapter 2

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

_**Reprisal**_

At the terminus of a painfully detailed mission report spanning the events of six months and requiring a solid two hours to recount, Jedi Master Mace Windu betrayed a faint glimmer of human frailty, inasmuch as he shifted in his seat, crossing his left leg over his right instead of vice versa. The Korun's bald pate tilted to one side, as he appraised the two miscreant Knights over casually steepled fingers.

"Torbb," he addressed the gargantuan woman in the Council chamber's center. "You are dismissed for the time being. Wait in the antechamber; we will speak with you again privately when we've finished with Kenobi here."

Though sumptuously endowed with size and strength, the towering Knight acquiesced to this command as meekly as an eopie calf, bowing low and sweeping out the exit in a hushed sweep of long robes. She dared offer one sympathetic glance to her comrade and ally – left behind to face further inquisition alone – before the burnished panel slid shut behind her.

Obi-Wan rolled his weight from the balls of his feet back to his heels, keeping his carefully composed gaze front and center. A perversely skittish corner of his mind – the one that never could _quite_ stay focused in the present moment, even to this day – wished that he might have been able to face his first (Force willing, _last)_ formal censuring by the Council in something less tawdry than Qui-Gon's old duster, presently frayed at the hems and spattered in russet stains. The vagabond's attire did seem a glaring confirmation of his perceived _roguery._

Reading the sloppily shielded thought as easily as a nine-meter holoprojection, Master Windu cocked one ironic brow and got down to business with characteristic aplomb. "I think," he began, baritone voice rolling through the twilit chamber with slow relish, "we would all agree that appearances can be deceiving."

It was an opening feint, and Obi-Wan was far too shrewd a swordsman to take such bait, but old Yoda, watching with trollish pleasure from the sidelines, appointed himself thoroughly unprincipled referee to the match. "Agree, do you not, Obi-Wan?" he prompted, imperiously.

The young Knight's mouth twitched in vexation. _Fine._ Compelled to make a false first step, he made as small a one as possible. "Yes, Master," he responded tightly.

"Good." The half-second's pause between affability and _authority_ was long enough for the Korun's tone to drop a full and displeased octave. "Then perhaps you would care to explain why it _looks_ like you flagrantly defied the express order of this Council, in order to play accomplice to a colleague's unauthorized personal vendetta, and to pursue a questionable agenda of your own outside Republic jurisdiction or Senatorial sanction?"

Vapaad was known for blazing and alarmingly direct offensives.

The subject of this multi-layered accusation took a moment to absorb the impact. _Focus._ _Let it flow through you- speak not to the barb but to the underlying truth._ He'd witnessed Qui-Gon Jinn withstand similar scathing indictment with perfect serenity, time and again; surely he had learned _something_ during all those mortifying hours standing a pace behind and to the left of the legendary maverick?

He dipped his head. "As you say, my Master, a limited focus can distort our reality."

A risky counterstrike, to be sure – but it revealed to him whom his allies might be among those assembled. The bright flare of humor emanating from Even Piell, the sharp frisson passing between Master Rancisis and Master Poof, the pique radiating from Masters Koth and Tinn, and the mild indulgence warming the Force on Ki Adi Mund'si and Plo Koon's side spoke volumes. Adi Gallia concealed her shock well; Depa Billaba might have spared him a pained smile just outside his peripheral vision, one warning him not to taunt her former mentor; Master Yoda cackled his delight for all the world to hear.

Only Master Windu remained entirely inscrutable in the face of such brazen flippancy – he, and the empty place in the Force where Master Dooku should have sat. His chair remained a hollow socket, like the missing eye concealed behind Master Piell's rakish patch - a void in the constellation of luminaries here gathered. The senior Sentinel's absence from this disciplinary hearing concerning his former padawan remained a mystery.

"Limited, hmmm?" the Grand Master leaped into the fray. "Bequeathed to you his _exceptional_ insight, has Master Jinn? Speak to you _specially_ does the Force now, young Obi-Wan?"

A wry wince; it was well never to forget that old Yoda would not hesitate to strike below the belt. A swift retreat in the face of such underhanded attack was the only feasible option. "Not specially, no Master… but perhaps individually, as it does all of us?"

Mace Windu's brows rose, inviting clarification.

He would never presume to pit his own humble insight against that of the Order's most revered living elders, so he resorted to reinforcements of a more titanic scale in the hierarchy of tradition. "Master Seva likens the illumination and guidance of the Force to refracted Light; while no individual is a conduit for more than a single part, yet each and every one of these is unique and contributes to the purity of the whole. It is therefore impossible to say _ this one did not hear the Force_ _aright _ simply because he hears its call _differently."_

The Korun Jedi waved one hand graciously. "Master Chakora Seva was surpassingly wise," he admitted.

Beat.

Thunderous scowl.

"...But I didn't _ask_ you for a germane citation from his opus. I _asked_ why you flouted this Council's wishes."

Smarting from the harsh rebuttal, Obi-Wan yielded the first skirmish. "Forgive me, Master. I intended no disrespect."

Ki Adi Mudi intervened, quietly. "But the question is, did you intend _disobedience?_ At the end of your Rim patrol mission, you reported to us that you had encountered a Force sensitive being steeped in the Dark Side, and that you believed it was a Sith warrior. We ordered you to return to Coruscant without delay, yet you purposefully deferred this return in order to pursue a separate matter. "

"I did not make the decision lightly," the young Knight assured his audience. "The Force _urged _me to return to Tatooine. To the source of the vergence."

"Deep waters, are these," Yoda chuffed, stirring the air with his gimer stick. "Singled out by destiny, did you feel?"

The evening shadows in the domed chamber seemed impalpably to stir, obedient to the ancient one's pensive motion; the muted colors of inlaid marble and pale walls to bleed into a marbled skein, a winding knot of fate. Light and Dark mingled and vied for supremacy, night and day twined together like lovers or foes locked in a death-match, past and future melded uneasily into a volatile, delicate present, a _fulcrum, _ a _shatterpoint._

Abruptly dizzy, the young Knight sought anchorage in the revered Master's wizened face – and found himself riveted to the spot, uncomfortably transparent to those searching, gimlet eyes.

"Followed you, this Sith did, to Tatooine," Yoda grunted.

"It .. it would appear so."

"Fought him there, you did." The gnarled skull bobbed, setting white wisps into a lively dance of their own, the fickle twisting of a candle's flame. "Intended this, he did. Laid a trap, he did. Baited it well."

Obi-Wan swallowed. _Qui-Gon._

"Sought out, you were, Obi-Wan. By Dark creature. One you have encountered _before."_

_Melida-Daan. _ He grasped at his 'sabers' hilt, where dual crystals inaudibly chimed, sonorous, unclouded. A heavy nod, one weighted by dreadful realization. "Yes… it was the same."

"Fought him with _passion_, you did." The old one nodded again, relentless, unremitting. "_Wound_ you, he did, hm. Here." One clawed digit rapped against the ancient Jedi's hunched chest. His wrinkled lips pursed. "_Touched_ Darkness, you have. _Tasted_ it, yes?"

Bitterest affirmation rising in his throat he bowed his head. "I did, Master. Before the end. The Force spared me from falling completely."

Surely the entire south spire was reeling in a soundless gale, caught up in that same vortex of Yoda's making, that same subtle pooling in the Force? He breathed through a wave of nausea, the Sith's leering face stamped upon his inner eye. _You are mine,_ the fetid lanterns of its eyes proclaimed. _My Chosen._

The Grand Master rapped his cane against the floor, startling every one present, breaking the apparent spell.

"How feel you now?" the diminutive Jedi queried, half-hooded eyes still fixed upon his victim, or pupil.

Now? In the damning light of recollection, of _self-doubt?_ He felt sick. "…Cold," he managed, truthfully enough.

Cold. Stripped naked, to the aching bone, the bleeding core where a crimson blade had grazed close to more than one heart, scrawled a savage claim to ownership upon that dedicated already to the Light. The duster's folds were insufficient succor to his shivering frame, but he crossed his arms beneath its scant protection and braced himself for the inevitable.

Ki Adi Mundi's voice was as mild and reasonable as ever, though its import fell like frigid hailstones through an empty sky. "Given this course of events, perhaps you might understand why we have reason to doubt the complete _clarity_ of your motives for returning to Tatooine. You had met the creature directly before; your thoughts and even your meditations at that time may have been manipulated."

_Stained._

"A vergence," Master Billaba gently observed, "Is difficult for even an accomplished and seasoned Master to understand correctly, or entirely."

Obi-Wan nodded. "Yes, Masters."

_Defiled. Twisted. Bent._

Mace WIndu let his hands fall to his seat's armrests, expressively. "To quote a wise man_, a limited_ _focus can distort our reality."_

Vapaad was the art of turning a foe's own attack against him.

Surely he had not blushed so deeply before the Council since he was fifteen years old. "As you say, my Master," Obi-Wan murmured, shame roaring in his ears.

Completely disarmed, he did not compound his humiliation by putting up any further defense. The rest of the session passed in an undifferentiated blur, the parsing out of his felonies a mere grammatical flourish upon the coup de grace already delivered. Patiently he endured to the end, offering only that which was required – his assent. Had he been aware of Torbb's personal attachment to Uticus the pirate? Yes, somewhat. Had he been aware that her hunt for Uticus had been unauthorized? Yes. Was he aware of the protocols and restrictions upon the Order's recruitment of younglings? Yes. Was he aware of the comm protocols that required he _report_ not only his detour and reasons for delay but the progress of his actions etc, etc, to the Council regularly and completely etc etc,? Yes.

And finally: when he had used a dangerous and unpredictable pharmaceutical compound to suspend Qui-Gon Jinn upon the very brink of death, had he acted on the Force's guidance or on the prompting of _attachment_ and emotion?

Both. Neither. "…I don't know," he confessed, lamely. _ Force, _ he needed sleep.

Now. Or sooner.

"You don't know?" Master Billaba repeated, curiously.

He hadn't enough vigor left to turn around though he could feel her wondering gaze slide softly along his back. He kept his chin up, and asked his question of Yoda, of the assembly in general. "Can they not be the same, ever? In _any _instance?" The protestation sounded petulant, even to him. Or else _weary._

Depa showed mercy. "Perhaps this will become clearer in meditation," she suggested. "You have not had any opportunity to properly reflect, I believe."

"Hmmmph," the Grand Master snorted, enigmatically.

Mace WIndu merely scrutinized him steadily, dark eyes unwavering, if not uncompassionate. "I think we have heard enough to reach a consensus and a judgment," he said, in a surprisingly gentle tone. " A swift exchange of guarded looks with his fellow Councilors, a silent flurry of minute signals, Force-borne affirmation. The Korun master's mien sobered yet further, though his deep voice tolled not with condemnation, but with resolve. "Obi-Wan Kenobi: you are hereby formally censured by this High Council, for _defiance."_

_Qui-Gon would be bursting his tabards with pride,_ the undisciplined part of his mind snipped. The rest of him wanted dearly to disappear into the Force itself. He dropped to one knee, head bowed. "I accept your guidance and reprimand, my Masters," he rasped out. "And shall strive to rectify my conduct hereafter, with the Force's gracious aid."

There was a brief silence. It occurred to him with the clarity of acute exhaustion, that the Force was soft-edged, weighted with pity more than indignation, unzealous for punishment. Odd, that. A small furrow formed between his brows as he looked up again.

Yoda's ears quirked upwards, slightly.

Master WIndu continued, words grave and measured. "Besides this, I am also placing you on a non-disciplinary probation until further notice. Take the time to rest, and to meditate upon these events."

"Counsel you require, Obi-Wan," Yoda added. "Seek you out I will."

"And I," the Korun master appended, to the utter astonishment of his young colleague.

Vapaad was also said to be a _taming_ of Dark passion, the _kata_ of one burned but never consumed.

"Thank you," the chastised Knight responded, heart pounding aginst his sternum. _Deep waters are these. Sought out, you were._

And then, because the Force prompted him so - and he was already branded for defiance so what had he to lose? – "What about the boy? Anakin?" _Sought out. Chosen._

Yoda's glimmering eyes widened to appalling gold-green orbs. "Champion his cause, do you, Obi-Wan? Present to Council for admittance to Order, hmmm?"

"I would not be so presumptuous, Master…" Except…._Qui-Gon would have been._ _ You know he would. _ "But I feel responsible for him. He was brought here at my behest."

The Grand Master squinted gargoylishly. "Matter for another day is this. Knight Bakk'ile still to deal with , have we. Bid her return, you will."

"May the Force be with you," Mace issued the formal dismissal as he stood and made the requisite bow.

* * *

In the antechamber, Torbb sat meditation lotus upon the floor, her face pallid and strained. Her eyes opened when he entered, raking him over solicitously.

"You look like hells."

Obi-Wan summoned a sassy grin. "Your turn."

The fragile smile slid off both their faces at once.

Torbb heaved herself upright with a grunt and a long sigh, enormous shoulders momentarily drooping before she swiftly composed herself. She adjusted the lightsaber at her hip and raised a hand to open the inner doors even as he slipped quietly into the lift.

The downward acceleration of the swift-tube did not ordinarily make him queasy, but tonight it must have been moving immoderately fast.

"Blast it," he grumbled, wobbling out at the spire's base, and making an unsteady beeline for the healer's ward- still unsure whether he obeyed the whim of attachment and emotion, or the Force's ever-mysterious Will.


	3. Chapter 3

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

_**Nocturne**_

"Ow!"

Anakin promptly shoved the offended digit into his mouth, assuaging the sting left by the med-droid's blood-sampler.

"Sorry," Bant Eerin soothed her young charge. "I should have warned you."

The boy sucked on his finger, watching the hovering mechanical tech insert the sample plate into a compact analyzer. "What's it checking for now? More infections? I took a bath _last_ week. With cleansing powder and _everything,"_

The Mon Cal stifled her amused chuckle with a small cough and made herself busy reviewing the scanner results. The newcomer was not only illness-free, he was in the very flush of health, atypically of children raised under the harsh strictures of slavery. There were traces of welts and weals on his back and thighs, marks left – he had stoically, almost callously informed her – by his previous owner, Watto. There were recent bruises and a sprain or two earned crashing a podracer and interfering in the scuffle between "Mister Obi-Wan" and a fearsome horned warrior. And there were a predictable number of small parasites crawling in his mop of sun-bleached hair – but beyond these trifling maladies, Anakin was a bundle of pure unsullied vitality.

And the Force was very strong with him, she had to admit. His presence was like one of the heat lamps that kept the hydroponic enclosures in the Temple gardens warm during winter season.

She glanced up from the datapad when Master Li bustled in, double checking MD-41's analyzer sample. The master healer took one look at the reading, bushy eyebrows rising nearly to his high hairline, then fixed the visitor with a very penetrating look.

"Am I _sick?"_Anakin yelped, immediately inferring the discovery of some catastrophic occult symptom.

"No. You, sir, are a_ conundrum_." Ben To stroked his beard into a perfect point and snorted.

His young interlocutor wrinkled his nose in confusion. "Is that… bad? Can I stay?"

Bant huffed impatiently. "It is not bad, and you are welcome to stay. Isn't that right, Master?"

Chivvied out of an indignant theoretical snit by his apprentice's not-so-subtle prompting, Master Li snapped back into his habitual bedside manner. Which is to say, he shooed the med unit out the door, pocketed the analyzer chit, brusquely informed Anakin that he would spend the night 'under observation' but would be supplied with decent clothing (in contrast to his frayed rags), a proper chaperone, and suitable quarters the next morning. He was halfway out the door, still in a condition of pronounced preoccupation, when he appended another pragmatic question as an afterthought.

"Something tells me you will be needing some supper, eh?"

The tow-headed child nodded enthusiastically. "Yessir! I'm _choobazzi_ hungry!"

"Bant." Ben To delegated the task with one distracted hand gesture, and disappeared in a curt swirl of robes.

Being compassionate to a fault, Bant bypassed the nutrition specialist droid station adjacent to the medward and made a special trip to the lower level refectory to fetch her charge his first meal in the Temple.

Upon re-entering the lift tube to the foundation level, she nearly dropped her overladen tray. Only a swiftly extended hand and a subtle nudge of the Force on her unexpected companion's part averted disaster.

"Obi!" the Mon Cal exclaimed, when balance had been restored. She practically bounced in place, unable to wrap arms about her long-lost friend due to the burden occupying both hands. "Oh, _Obi…!"_ Nor was it possible to ball both webbed fists upon her hips, so she settled for a scowl. "It didn't go well."

The young Knight released a slow breath.

Bant's mouth puckered as the lift slowed to a halt. "They … they didn't _punish you,_ did they?"

Defensive humor gently parried the unwelcome query. "Bread and water for the rest of my mortal days," Obi-Wan quipped, the faintest dregs of a smile appearing about the corners of his eyes, twitching one corner of his mouth upward before dissipating into melancholy once more.

The doors slid open, bursting their ephemeral bubble of privacy. Bant sighed, and bustled out ahead of her friend, leading the way deep into the healers' realm. MD-40 shied away down a side corridor at the sight of Obi-Wan; the subject of its aversion raised a caustic brow in the fleeing droid's direction as they passed. He followed forlornly on Bant's heels, not particularly caring where his feet led him – until he was startled out of his introspective abstraction by a gangly bundle of oversized medward tunics and unruly blond hair.

"Mister Obi-Wan sir! That took _forever."_

He grimaced, wryly. "Yes, it did."

The boy vibrated with pent-up energy. "This place is pretty wizard. There's like a million machines and stuff. Things I've never _seen _ before and the droids are totally rugged! And can we maybe go back to that hangar? 'Cause I'd _really_ like to look around there some more, maybe up close at some of the ships? And do I _have_ to wear this stuff? It's scratchy."

Bant pointed to the single plastoid chair in the examination room's corner. He sank obediently into place, grateful for Anakin's unceasing prattle. It spared him the trouble of supporting any civil conversation, after all.

"Whoa! All this food is for _me!"_ Having thus expressed his overweening thankfulness, the boy set to with a will, demolishing the contents of the various bowls and plates with an admirable lack of fastidiousness or selective appetite. Unfortunately, the brief hiatus in his wonderstruck monologue afforded Bant the opening she needed.

"You're exhausted," she chided, shoving a bio-sign probe into his ear canal without permission. "…And you're running a fever! I knew it."

"Then why the _intrusive_ diagnostics?" he wondered, sotto voce.

The apprentice healer smacked him in the back of the head. "Grumpy. Proves my point. I'm reporting to Master Li."

"You do that," he darkly commended as she slipped back into the corridor to summon reinforcements.

Anakin, who had observed the entire exchange with wide eyes and a full mouth, managed to swallow down his last enormous bite. "You guys remind me of me and Kitster, " he observed, merrily. Then, without warning, his mood plummeted into misery. "I miss Kitster," he impulsively confessed. His shoulders slumped beneath the too-large folds of his shirt. "I.. I wonder if I'll ever see him again…. Or _Mom."_

"It is natural to miss those we have left behind." The words were out his mouth fleeter than thought, outstripping his prudence in their desire to salve an aching wound – though whether it were his own or the boy's he could not say. "But it is not good to dwell upon such feelings."

Anakin twisted his mouth to one side. "How come?"

_Because the pain cuts deep, and the Dark is hungry._ "Suppose you were to walk forward along a path with your head turned over one shoulder toward the place from which you came. Because you missed it so much."

The boy nodded.

"What do you suppose would happen to you?"

A shrug. "You would never forget?"

"You would walk face first into a wall," Obi-Wan corrected him, tartly.

Anakin blinked, then stared. Timidly, a bloom of shared humor peeked from beneath the snowdrifts, the white sand-drifts of grief, of uncertainty, uniting them in a tentative and sly grin. The Force gusted gently, impalpably smoothing the jagged footprints left by the recent past, a bright wind clearing a wide path ahead.

The present moment brusquely reasserted itself in the person of Master Li. "What's this?" the harried senior healer quipped, entering unannounced. "The prodigal son returns."

"Master." Since he was already hunched over in the uncomfortable chair, allowing his weary head to droop another notch downward seemed close enough to a bow for present circumstances.

"Anakin," Bant suggested, with more command than request in her tone, " Why don't you come with me? We'll find you a place to sleep tonight, and I'll show you where the 'fresher is."

Their feet pattered a soft counterpoint down the corridor outside.

"Enough posturing," Ben To snipped. He crouched before his visitor, spreading one bony hand across a furrowed brow. "I _felt _ you the moment I stepped aboard that shuttle earlier. Don't proffer any of your wretched excuses, now."

"I need to see Qui-Gon. And Garen. And Feld," Obi-Wan insisted, blearlly. "And Zhoa."

The healer's assessing touch moved to a pulse point, then to the solar _chakra._ "They are resting comfortably, and I won't have you disturbing them at this star-forsaken hour… have you any idea how _late _ it is?"

A shake of the head; the young Knight slumped further forward, elbows resting on knees.

Ben To sighed throatily as he stood. "Did the Council leave a single inch of your hide intact?"

Another shake of the head, and a bitter snort.

The healer's gnarled fingers settled lightly upon his shoulder, kneading at taut muscle. "You've brought me two impossibilities in one day… I suppose I should thank you for forcibly broadening my horizons. At my age, that doesn't occur with great regularity anymore."

"…I come to serve," came the predictably insouciant, if somewhat hoarse, retort.

"As do I," Ben To murmured, hand splayed on the younger man's back. "And I suggest that you accept my particular service in this moment. You are _spent,_ and a new day brings its own beginning."

"I won't inconvenience you, Master –"

"You will sleep in my office. I've a cot there. Come , come, come – Up. I've much to do; don't waste my time quibbling and haggling with me. Surrender now and I'll make you tea in the morning."

The baldly proposed incentive evoked a half-smile. "Out-negotiated," Obi-Wan muttered, heaving himself back onto his feet.

Ben To chuckled in triumph as he shepherded his captive down the hall, toward the humblest of beds and what simple refuge the Force might provide in its deep and dreamless embrace.

* * *

Several levels beneath the Temple's modern foundation, buried within a catacomb hewn of ink-veined granite, another of the Order's revered elders gazed upon a quite different embodiment of the younger generation with dispassionate acuity.

But here there was no rest.

The young Zabrak warrior paced the confines of his cell – the tomb like enclosure surrounded on all sides, floor to ceiling, by that same smothering _void_ which seeped like tarry ooze from the very stone itself – and raged. His cauterized arm's stump, presently encased in a biostasis cuff in anticipation of a prosthetic implant, banged frantically against the impermeable walls of his prison. His horned head rolled side to side in an agony far more than the physical pain any of his injuries might produce. His crooked teeth gnashed together; perspiration slicked his luridly pattered chest and shoulders, bare where his initial panicked thrashings had clawed the battle-scorched garments from his very body.

Even a minion of Darkness might go _mad_ when deprived of the Force itself. Though this one, Yan Dooku idly surmised, was more than likely half-mad already. Certainly the paroxysm of rage here displayed for his benefit was a thing long in the fermenting, decanted in this time and place but of slow and scrupulous making.

The creature was a work of _art._ And that disturbed him greatly.

For to torment and twist another sentient – a _gifted_ one, a child born to Light but kept cunningly obscured from its influence – to such depravity took the skill of a master artisan, one who was no mere servant of evil but its veritable author and creator. Just as one might infer the existence of a sculptor from the bronzium busts lining the Archives central aisle, or the talent of an architect from the Temple's soaring spires and graceful colonnades, this _acolyte_ bespoke the genius of the one who had made him. He was one of the stunted trees of the Kiir'xuu , twisted and frustrated and pruned into a fantastic shape impossible to attain through the mere vicissitudes of nature and fortune. He was a thing _forged,_ hammered and bent and tested in fire until its raw elements, its native potency, had been tempered to the finest edge.

Not unlike a Jedi. One was a blade of light, this other the curved knife of treason.

But both were the fruit of long labor, of _teaching._ Each was the living legacy of its _master._

He stroked his short silver beard with one elegant hand, mind wandering the forgotten halls of history, the strife fretted eons upon which this very Temple rested as a monument upon a battlefield long become cemetery. The ghosts of the primordial vendetta had long since cased to haunt the Order's upper reaches, its unshadowed arcades and classrooms, its gardens and meditation towers. But here, among the roots of time, he stood and gazed at an obscenity beyond description, a fact beyond rational dispute.

The Sith were extinct – but here before him prowled and ranted the very resurrection of the dead.


	4. Chapter 4

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

_**Reunions**_

Ben To Li's self-heating ceramplast teapot shrieked its readiness like a class-three ion storm alarm klaxon, instantly jolting the senior healer's guest into adrenaline-saturated wakefulness.

"Good afternoon," the silver-haired Jedi master said, convivially pouring the aromatic brew into two wide-brimmed bowls.

Obi-Wan ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "Stars' _end,_ Master ."

Ben To clucked briskly, proffering a steaming serving to the younger man. "The very finest _silpa_ from Chandrila. I've a Quondoor surgeon friend there – he occasionally sends a care package in exchange for my expertise as a consultant."

The tea was indeed superlative, subtle and rich, tannins mellowed by floral overtones and a lingering earthiness upon the tongue. "Shame on you. Accepting bribes."

"Payment," the healer curtly replied, rearranging the prodigious stack of holovolumes upon his broad desktop. "Don't pretend you are above such enticements yourself."

Obi-Wan idly levitated the topmost book into his own free hand. "I am immune to such base allurements," he claimed, airily. "You should know that." The warmth kindling in his belly momentarily drove away the clouds of anxiety over his comrades and master; it was possible to believe that the Force would produce a miracle, rectify all that was injurious and imbalanced, restore the tranquility of order to the microcosm of his inner circle_, _ to the galaxy at large.

"_Pshaw." _ A dubious snort. "Every man has his price. If I were to offer you access to the recently discovered missing volume of the _Teth Dynastic Annals, _ for instance – "

"Missing volume?" the young Jedi perked up instantly, nearly spilling the dregs of his bowl . "Has Madame Nu accessioned a copy yet?"

Ben To guffawed heartily at his victim's expense. "There is no such thing!" he exclaimed. "But you were willing to all but publicly repudiate the Code in order to get your hands on it. Admit it!"

Obi-Wan's eyes narrowed. "I might have been carried away by enthusiasm," he grudgingly admitted. "But that doesn't count – it's been _months_ since I've set foot in a decent library." His gaze dropped to the tome presently in his grasp. "…You're researching the _midichlorians?"_

Twirling his pointed beard between thumb and forefinger, the master healer leaned back in his creaking and generously upholstered chair. "The one commonality of your two impossibles." When this revelation produced nothing more than a quizzical frown, he waved a dismissive hand. "I'll explain later, when I'm certain I'm not spouting vacuous nonsense." The narrow holo-book flew out of the young Knight's hands into his own. "These theoretical natterings are of far less interest to you, I would wager, than certain other things."

A sober nod. "With your permission… or must I bribe the gatekeeper?"

Ben To's answering smile was beatifically mercenary. "Make yourself presentable, give me another look at you and a blood sample, and I shall meet your terms."

* * *

There was a time for aggressive negotiation, and a time for meek compliance – and Obi-Wan, at this point in his career, liked to think that he could not only recognize the latter situation on the rare occasion when it manifested itself, but that he could actually meet its demands. Thus, properly bathed – _water_ shower, to ritually expunge Tatooine from his person - and groomed – _fresh, brand-new_ whites from the quartermaster's supply, ones not bearing the traces of his encounter with the Sith – and dutifully worked over by the intrusively solicitous Ben To – because no price was too high for the privilege of seeing his comrades again – he followed the master healer to the ward's sequestered intensive unit, where he was grimly issued into a small chamber full of blipping monitors and the ominously hovering presence of an older-model med-droid, the sort that had no bedside manner whatsoever.

It didn't need to have one _here;_ Qui-Gon Jinn lay unmoving, the shroud of death invisibly draped over his form, his skin ashen grey, his presence muted to a nullity. The machines clustered about him all proclaimed the absence of life, flat-lining, emitting continuous monotonic drones, mournfully blipping _zero_ and _nil._ Their quiet, overlapping chorus could easily be the crackle of funeral flames, the sterile couch beneath the tall man's body a stone-hewn pyre slab.

The impulse to put his cowl up and retreat into the Force's anonymity was overwhelming, but he would have to wheedle a new cloak out of Master Pakkra later. For the moment, he was naked beneath the glare of the overhead illuminator.

"No change," Ben To observed, behind him.

Obi-Wan managed a curt nod.

"Which is good news, from a certain point of view," the healer continued. "My time has not yet run out."

_But can you do anything? _ "Yes," he answered. In death – in the simalcrum of death – Qui-Gon appeared startlingly older. There were fine lines upon his skin that had been but the grooves of laughter before, the exuberant channels of his life-energy coursing across a wide plain; there were silver swaths in his long hair and beard, that had been wisdom's crown but now appeared as the scars of time, the hollow decanting of precious life. The Jedi master had not reached his sixtieth cycle yet, but here he appeared more aged than Master Yoda, a worn husk, all the vital fire dampened and stamped out, furled deep deep within, invisible.

Perhaps it wasn't there at all. Perhaps it could not …_escape._ This was neither life nor death – what if, somehow, luminous spirit was _trapped,_ unable to return to the universal Force, caught forever in a tepid limbo between existence and nirvana? He shook his head, dispelling the awkward, rough-edged concepts., banishing the superstitious dread stirring in his gut.

Ben To's hand found his elbow and exerted a small pressure. "What the mind does not grasp, it seeks to explain by other means. Do not let your imagination run amok."

He forced a rueful smile. "Yes, Master."

"If it's any consolation, I do not understand, either – _yet."_

Which was no consolation at all. "Is there anything I can do?" he queried, though instinct told him it was a futile gesture, the helpless pleading of a mere bystander.

To his surprise, the healer thoughtfully stroked his beard. "If there is, I shall certainly importune you," he promised. "…But there is nothing you can do _now._ Come along."

* * *

Garen Muln was not in a sepulchral state of suspended animation.

He was merely confined to the narrow parameters of a _hover-chair._

"Yeah," the disconsolate padawan grunted, in answer to his friend's hesitant inquiry. "It's _permanent._ People don't spontaneously regenerate spinal tissue, Obes. Trandoshans, maybe. But humans, no." A bitterness twisted the Force between them.

"Prosthetics-" Obi-Wan began.

"-are a heap of rancor chisszk where central nervous damage is concerned. I'm not _doing_ a full spinal transplant." He shuddered. "No cyber-Gar, thanks."

Silence descended, an untimely frost nipping the buds of further discourse, settling icily between them. The young Knight shifted uneasily, a deep line stamped between his brows. "Garen, I …."

"You know what?" the invalid aggressively interrupted him. "Remember how we used to wonder about the Service Corps? Worry about not making the cut? About falling short of Knighthood?"

Obi-Wan's back stiffened. "Garen, you mustn't – "

"Don't _tell_ me what I must and must not do, Kenobi!" Throttled resentment edged the injured man's next words. "Don't like what you see? Get used to it. _Accept _ it. You're supposed to be the master of serenity and wisdom, remember? So set a fine example for the less exalted members of the Order, would you?"

The subject of this unprovoked abuse stood. "I am sorry if my presence causes you further pain. I shan't impose any longer."

Garen's hands clenched hard at the armrests of his hovering conveyance. Color suffused his pallid face, a splotch of angry red spreading over either cheekbone. He looked away. "Kriff it. _Merbla'tzu,_ Obi, just….. go. Please." He wheeled the floating chair about, hiding his face and offering no additional words of parting.

"I'm sorry, Garen."

He left before the hard ache in his throat could betray him in a trembling syllable or hitched breath; in the corridor outside, Ben To waited with folded hands and deep-set eyes glimmering in subtle sympathy. "He will walk again," the healer assured his younger companion. "With much training. But to fight with the 'saber?..." A shrug of bony shoulders. "That would indeed be a feat. A marvel of the Force. He has refused neural transplants."

Obi-Wan scowled. "He is angry."

"Anger fuels recovery, sometimes."

"It is also a path to the Dark."

Ben To was unimpressed. "Then be you sure he doesn't wander from the path. You aren't going to abandon a friend simply because he's a convalescent, are you?"

"He _told_ me to leave, Master. I do not think –"

One gnarled finger poked him hard in the chest. "Good. You do better when you _curb_ that overactive mind of yours. Feel, don't think. "

"I – "

But the master healer was already brusquely hurrying down the hall on his next errand, leaving the young Knight to sort it out for himself.

"_Blast _ it all to the hells," he muttered, releasing a long purgative breath.

"Further than that, my friend. Further than that," a familiar voice recommended.

Obi-Wan slewed round, heart leaping. "Feld!"

* * *

The Twi"Lek Knight was a haggard sight: one lekku was marred by a sinuous, still-healing scar, his halting gait a testament to recently mended internal injuries, the lackluster cast to his blue skin a sad contrast to his usual robust appearance. The indigo freckles on his shoulders and back peeped through where the sloppily fastened med-ward gown gaped open. But Feld's brilliant white smile was unsullied, a flash of purest defiant ebullience. "_Much_ further than the hells." He limped his way down the corridor, one hand trailing the inset rail for support, and came to a halt arm's length from his friend. "Blast it straight through the Underworld, into the Sullustan Seventh Paradise, and right up the Thousand Blessed Ones' –"

"Feld!"

An impish chuckle. "You're a prude, Obi-Nobi."

"I am _civilized."_

Feld's mutilated lekku twitched in amusement. One blue hand touched the tender spot where sensitive skin was puckering into a thin white rivulet. "Like my new look? Rakish, eh? Maybe Zhoa will respect my authority now that I resemble a pirate. "

Obi-Wan gently clasped his comrade's shoulder. "How is your padawan?"

The tall Twi"Lek Knight sobered. "Better. Better, by slow degrees. She told me how you rescued her." He returned the half-embrace, one hand gripping hard at the other Knight's shoulder. "I am forever in your debt."

"Hardly." A rueful grimace. "I sent you into that ambush –"

"What? I can make my own mistakes and own them, too," Feld scoffed. "Keep your greedy mitts off." He winked slyly. "Besides, rumor has it you ticked off the Council enough without borrowing trouble, eh?"

Obi-Wan's mouth thinned to an aggrieved line. "Still grinding the gossip mill, Feld?"

"I have connections," the Twi'Lek quipped, leaning wearily against the wall. "…Zhoa has connections, I should say. They've found her a companion in my absence – senior padawan to keep her company, somebody to provide counsel."

His friend frowned. "From another padawan? That's rather unusual."

"Master Li's brilliant idea. Most his ideas are not so _agreeable,_ though, eh? I've had it up to here with bacta," he confessed. "Makes my gorge rise. You aren't still in the rescue business, Obi-Nobi, are you …. I could use some liberation here, if you are in the mood."

The would-be hero snorted. "Sorry. I only rescue _innocents."_

" Heartless _bastard," _Feld hissed beneath his breath, just as Ben To Li appeared in a swirl of pale healers' robes, MD-41 hovering flusteredly on his heels.

"What in the blazes," the senior Jedi muttered. Then, "I should have known. You. _Spruu._ " A terse chopping gesture dismissed Feld into the nearest exam room, escorted by the droid. "And you: Kenobi. If you want more tea or wisdom, come back after hours; otherwise, scram. You're underfoot."

* * *

IN the end, he had no heart to leave. Garen's resentment, or fear, spilled like corrosive acid across his shields, tethering him to the spot with reflexive guilt; the empty quarters he shared with Qui-Gon Jinn would surely offer no true respite from anxiety; the Council's pleasure had suspended him from any pressing duty that might provide distraction. His reluctant steps therefore carried him out of Ben To's irritable path, but not far – the Halls of Healing boasted a small indoor garden at their very center, a hushed sanctuary for those seeking meditative quiet and recuperation.

Water played softly, counterpoint to the Force's chiming. He sank down, in a sequestered corner, seeking that deep and enduring center that had eluded him ever since Tatooine.

Measured breath in, careful release.

Again.

In . Out. In.

The Force coalesced, bending the diaspora of starstuff into flesh and bone, air and water into breath and blood, the ethereal scent of mandrangea blossoms borne upon an invisible wind. The warmth of another presence settled beside him upon the fragrant grotto's margins; a hand brushed against his sleeve – a flutterwing's touch, a searing brand.

He opened his eyes, in sudden recognition. Delight. Alarm. "…Siri."


	5. Chapter 5

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**_Tête-à-tête_**

The young Nautolan was a girl, Anakin decided; her white tunics did not lay _quite_ flat against her chest, and her feet did not have the appearance of being too big for her still-gangly limbs. It was hard to tell from voice and facial features and stuff like that at their age – especially when you were dealing with a really _exotic_ species – but he was pretty good at making an educated guess. Her eyes were huge and glossy-black, a lot like that Rodian street-thug Greedo back on Tatooine. Anakin had never liked that avaricious barve's souless stare, but somehow it was different with his new acquaintance. The world and his own reflection appeared upside down in both pearly dark orbs, soft-edged and glossed with compassion. Her headtails were barely down to her shoulders, looking more like a desert succulent plant than an aquatic creature, and this endeared her to him as well.

It was easier to be an _ex slave boy_ in a Temple full of legendary warrior monks when some of the latter people were just as awkward and goofy as he felt. The knot beneath his ribs loosened a trifle.

"My name is Zhoa," the girl told him. She was maybe twelve, or thirteen. Not _too_ much older than he was, not enough to clinch her the prerogative of automatic authority over him, anyway.

"Anakin," he supplied, remembering at the last moment that he need not append _I am a person not a slave._ His dignity seemed to be granted as an obvious premise here. It felt… strange. His reflexive habit of defiance floundered, seeking a new object. "Uh… am I supposed to go with you now?"

She nodded, solemnly. "I can take you to the dining hall. It's almost bell for last-meal, and then I'm to show you up to the guest wing." Her eyes widened. "They gave you your _own room."_

He shrugged. So what? He'd had his own room back home with Mom…. What was the big deal about that?

"…But I'm supposed to stay with you. As escort," she added, with an apologetic note. "It's the rules."

Rules agan. For a _free_ man, he certainly found himself circumscribed by prohibitions and restrictions on all sides. The Jedi had more rules than Watto ever did…. Even Shmi's _rules_ had been more general guidelines, stemming from a desire not to see her only child meet an untimely demise at the hands of disreputable gangsters or desert predators. Ever since he'd set foot in this place, they'd been telling him what to do – not in a mean, threatening way, but with the easy confidence of people who expected automatic obedience. And it hadn't escaped his notice that _all _the elders here were called "Master" even if they all insisted it merely denoted a magisterial role.

If the Jedi were the defenders of justice and Light, if they were _good, _then shouldn't they just trust each other to do what was right? Why all the rules and obeying and stuff? He shook his head.

Zhoa's delicate green brows contracted. "Are you okay?"

He nodded, reeling from a titanic pang of homesickness. Everything had happened so fast, and he wasn't even sure what he was _doing_ here…. "Can I call my Mom?" he blurted. "Mister Obi-Wan gave her a comm unit. To get messages."

The young Nautolan clearly had not anticipated this request. "Oh… he did? Um…. Well, the comm center is not far from here, but I don't really know how to use the long-range amplifier. I mean, I've learned in class and I can make the shipboard short-range one work, but –"

"I can figure it out," Anakin assured her. "Please?"

* * *

"…What are you doing here?"

One corner of Siri's tightened curved into a sarcastic dimple. "Kneeling in the mud next to you. Seems obvious."

A long cascade of white-gold fell from its tight binding behind her head, only a few stray hairs coiling rebelliously at her nape. The learner's braid over her right shoulder reached to her waist, adorned with a long series of bands and tiny beads. Her eyes watched him warily- anxiously- despite the brisk retort.

He raised a supercilious brow. "Master Seva says_, Wallowing in another's mire is the compassion of fools."_

Siri's glacial blue eyes rolled upwards. She squinted at him. "Still spouting platitudes, _Master_ Kenobi? I thought you were on probation."

Well. _Somebody_ had been avidly perusing the public Council decrees. "I can still throw pearls before swine, _Padawan _Tachi."

"Save it for your new apprentice," she snorted.

He frowned. _What…?_

"Rumor has it you've brought back a promising recruit from the Outer Rims, with intention of training him."

Obi-Wan crossed his arms, disgruntled. "Idle gossip."

"Ah well… Zhoa will be disappointed. She's busy playing escort to the newcomer. And here she thought she was getting in with your new padawan at the ground floor."

He rubbed at his chin, noting the rough texture beneath his fingers. Ben To hadn't had a decent grooming kit on hand, and he had been in a _hurry._ "Haven't you anything better to do than promote prurient speculation?" he inquired, censoriously.

"I don't know… have I?"

Which made his heart skip another beat. They really shouldn't even be _speaking_ to one another, especially not when he was so raw, so preoccupied with unwelcome burdens, so tempted to unbecoming _weakness_ by the unspoken offer of …. "Haven't you?" he repeated, pointedly. He couldn't recall having a single _minute_ of free time as a senior padawan. Of course, he'd spent much of his latter apprenticeship in less than ideal circumstances, to say the least, but still….

"Adi was called away by the Chancellor's special request," Siri explained. "And I'm playing preceptor to Zhoa, but she's taking care of your adoptee at the moment, so alas. I'm at loose ends."

The idea of Siri at loose ends was also profoundly disruptive to his inner tranquility. He stood, quickly, Force-flicking damp mulch from his trouser knees. "I've got to see the quartermaster," he excused himself, lamely. "And request new accommodations." He was _not_ returning to Qui-Gon's empty rooms, so achingly resonant of the tall man's Force signature, of a decade's fond memory.

_Detachment._ _Do not look back._

"I'll come with you," Siri declared, purposefully ignoring the hint.

* * *

Getting the interstellar hub relay properly aligned was a snap.

Thinking what to _say_ was the hard part. Anakin sat at the commsat station's swiveling chair and kicked his legs. He wished he could actually obtain a holo-link… the equipment here in the Temple's communications center was so avante garde he'd never _seen_ half the stuff before. The trouble was on Tatooine's end, and with the lack of infrastructure points between Coruscant and the far-flung Rims outside Republic jurisdiction. That's what Mister Obi-Wan had said, anyway.

Maybe he could invent a way to translate holo images without a pulse sequence relay transfer… if you didn't encrypt separate code-lines as photointegrated modules, and you piggybacked off a mobile carrier like a hyperspace tunnel terminus marker... his mind raced, aching for more raw information to fuel his kindling inspiration. He had only the remnants and beggars' scraps of knowledge he'd been able to glean from borrowed manuals, from experimentation on wrecked machinery. Maybe with the technology available here, with the sheer _profusion_ of expertise to be had, he could _fix_ this problem. Someday.

In the meanwhile, he still couldn't think what to say.

"Ban Yaro said _five minutes,"_ the girl named Zhoa reminded him.

Right. He sat up straight in front of the holo-cam, even though his image would not transfer. "Hi Mom," he began, tentatively. "I hope you're okay and everything is good back home. " He should probably inquire after Cliegg Lars, but the words stuck in his throat. If it hadn't been for _Lars, _ maybe Shmi would be here with her son. "Coruscant is wizard – it's like one giant city, the whole planet! And I got to pilot the ship down for a couple minutes. And the Jedi Temple is huge, way bigger than Jabba's palace even. Everybody's nice, I guess. I get my own room. And.. the food's pretty choobazzi. I guess that's all. I miss you." He sniffed, and shrugged his shoulders. He didn't want to talk about Mr. Qui-Gon, or the overwhelming strangeness of this new place….Hopefully Shmi would be content simply knowing that he was safe and cared for, because his eloquence and his time allotment dwindled simultaneously. "Bye."

"Hey Zhoa," he asked, impulsively, as they filed out into the connecting concourse again, "What would happen to you if you always walked around with your head craned over one shoulder, like you were looking behind all the time?"

The Nautolan girl blinked, translucent membranes swiftly flicking over her enormous opal eyes. "You… would be good at finding your way back to the beginning again?" she offered, as though answering a difficult riddle.

Anakin decided that he liked her. A lot. "Can we eat now?" he asked.

* * *

"Above all else, Chiros, do not underestimate his treachery. With or without the Force, he is steeped in the ways of the Dark. Deception is his life-blood."

"I will be mindful, Master," the solemn Iktotchi Knight murmured. Former padawan learner to the deceased traitor Sifo-Dyas, Chiros was a grim and dedicated Sentinel, talented for his age – not nearly as rife with potential as Kenobi but far more _tractable._

They descended the last few steps into the thanatosite granite enclosure, the sublevel's dismal center where the Force churned but sluggishly, as though absorbed into the hewn black stone on all sides. The Iktotchi snorted in revulsion, but kept a steady pace beside his superior. Dooku for his part merely encapsulated his inner fire in an impermeable fortress of will, a hearth-flame nourished in deepest secret. The technique was his own, a skill forged of necessity and bitter experience. That inmost spark he cherished as a hidden weapon, a blade of the heart as yet sheathed and quiescent.

The Zabrak raged openly when they chained him to the cold wall, spitting and gibbering Iridonian profanity, curses curdled and festering with madness, the animal terror of a thing cut off from its foundation and source, flailing in the lifeless void.

Dooku paced before his captive. "Your Master," he began the inquisition. "Tell me where I may find him."

"I will tell you nothing!" the Zabrak snarled. "Rot in the lowest hells with all your kind, Jedi! There is no pain which will induce me to betray my _Master."_

The Sentinel raised one silver brow. "I would derive no pleasure from inflicting petty indignities upon your person," he assured the snarling prisoner. " He halted, black cloak tracing a sinuous line at his heels. "I prefer a more _direct_ approach."

* * *

"Well, so much for the direct approach, " Siri scoffed, as they departed the quartermaster's storeroom, new cloak in hand.

"Master Pakkra is not susceptible to flattery or bullying," Obi-Wan grumbled. "Believe me – I've tried."

They entered the lift tube side by side. "Hm. He never lectures _me_ on the virtue of mindfulness and the dangers of wasting the Order's resources."

The young Knight shrugged expetimentally into his new possession, noting that it was a trifle too long, and was – in fact – used already, quite manifestly secondhand. Morbidly, he wondered what had caused it to part from the company of its first owner. "He's lectured the deuce out of me over the years," he replied, indifferently. "But I remain an utter reprobate."

The lift issued them onto an upper level concourse in the guest residence wing, near one of the least renovated corridors. Even the lighting fixtures here gleamed more dully; the inlaid floors were worn by centuries of use, the walls adorned not with pattern or sconce, but with sternly scribed calligraphy enumerating the Precepts of Conduct - the relic of a more puritanical phase in the Order's long history.

Siri located room Grek-6 with ease. "Ah," she smirked, tracing the carven words upon the lintel, "A warning against profligacy. How apropos."

"Ha." Noting that he had been thus doubly penalized for carelessness, Obi-Wan sauntered into the austere cell and tossed his new-not-new cloak onto the single meditation cushion with a sour flick of the wrist. The space was small, boasted only the bare minimum of modern amenities and almost no furnishings – but it was blessedly free of any personal traces, the Force devoid of any psychic echoes or associations. It would do.

Siri followed him in, without invitation. He sank down upon the ascetical sleep-mattress' edge and gestured hospitably to the faded meditation cushion opposite.

She sat beside him anyway, and waved the door shut.

"Zhoa told me… about some of it," she said, softly. "The Rim patrol mission, I mean. "

"It was bad," he admitted.

"I worried for you."

"You shouldn't, Siri. You know better."

She snorted. "I know _you._ I know how you... carry things."

He nodded, not wishing to explore the topic any further. "It is in the past."

Misstep. "It is in the _present,_ you gundark. They are hurt _now._ Garen might never…."

"I _know," _he snapped, perilously close to _temper._

"I'm sorry about Master Jinn, too."

"It will be as the Force wills." He crossed his arms, and lifted his chin. Duty. Tradition. _Role._ He couldn't afford to indulge in sentiment.

"It was the same … creature." She touched his arm. "Wasn't it? The one….. from before."

_Melida-Daan._ Of course she remembered. Above anyone else in the galaxy, she would recall. It had been she who…

He exhaled, closing his eyes. Twin suns seemed to burn behind his eyelids, double yellow lanterns fueled by wrath, by lust – two hollow caves lit by jeering laughter, pleasure in the act of _murder._ Qui-Gon's gasp of agony, the Sith's cry of triumph, the Council's grave faces, Anakin's wondering eyes, Garen's anger, Feld's limp – and Zhoa, Zhoa in the slave pen, the slave girl in the Hutt's palace, _all_ the slaves on Tatooine, in the Rims, everywhere, Torbb Bakk'ile's grief, Uticus's death, piracy, rapine, corruption, New Dawn, the unraveling of civilization, the falling shroud descending down down in ghastly pennants, diaphanous funeral banners…. Fell voices chanting, chorusing in the Force's shadowed depths: _Korah. Yoodah. Matah – that sense of _falling,_ of _plunging over the tipping point into unfathomed abysses –

Siri's hand grazed against his cheek, dispelling the vision's gathering thunderheads.

"Don't," he pleaded with her, abruptly weary beyond reckoning.

Naturally, she did not comply.

"We shouldn't be here. Alone, I mean," he rasped. It wasn't proper, It was _imprudent._

"I know," she murmured in his ear. "But you won't _talk_ anywhere else."

He wasn't going to talk here, either.

"It's all right, _ben'ke..._ come here. Hush."

He slid to his knees in surrender, and laying his head in her lap, poured out in silence that which exceeded the fragile confines of speech.


	6. Chapter 6

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

_**Alliance**_

The senior level dojo in the east wing had recently been outfitted with several smaller practice salles – modern, high-ceilinged spaces the walls and floor of which had been treated with a peculiar industrial compound derived from shipwright's hull shielding, an elastic molecular synthesis designed to _reflect _ high-velocity plasma packets. Standard blaster bolts fired within the confines of such a chamber would ricochet off every surface, perhaps seven or eight times, until the loss of kinetic impetus enfeebled them to the point of dissipation; needless to say, training with remotes in such a tight and perilous environment was a pastime pursued by only the most skilled or the temperamentally insane.

Blindfolded in the center of one such space, with a hovering remote programmed to squeeze off a non-lethal stun packet every three seconds, Obi-Wan briefly wondered whether he fell into the former or latter category, or perhaps some volatile and dangerous admixture of both. Only briefly, of course, because by the time the droid had sent five or six blasts winging in his direction, he found himself embattled at the focal point of a geometric maelstrom, lines of bright red zinging in erratic diagonals on all sides, crossing and occasionally intersecting in a screeching explosion. His 'saber howled and spun, batting away the ever-increasing number of projectiles careening down upon him, every successful deflection only serving to send the same bolt whizzing back at him split seconds later. The Force coiled inward with his motion, weaving an invisible sphere, a fluid plaiting of here-there-now-then-everywhere , until time expanded into timelessness, duration into a perpetual, measureless perfection: stillness-in-motion, contemplation-in-action, harmony-within-chaos.

He grinned, a fierce and fettlesome kind of delight erupting upward from his own center, resonating with the tranquil fury in the Force, a kind of forgetful bliss – the moment the present moment no past no future no emotion no death nothing but the Force -

Until somebody banged a fist against the transparisteel back wall, cracking the faintest hairline fissure in his concentration .

"Ah! _Blast it!"_ he hissed as his blade clipped too far down on a back swing, letting a bolt graze past his guard and slam into his ankle. The cadence was lost; the sphere shattered; he ducked and rolled, fluidly evading the remainder of the wildly jinking shots, until he somersaulted to a more or less un-singed standstill in the center of the floor. Thankfully the remote had deactivated the instant he'd taken the first hit.

Jedi Master Mace Windu was chuckling to himself on the other side of the glass, earth-toned robes gathered in voluminous folds about his quivering shoulders. The tall Korun raised one brow and summoned his younger colleague into the main corridor with one authoritative, if amused, hand gesture.

Obi-Wan bowed, flexing his toes inside his boot in an attempt to restore circulation – the "non-lethal " power setting still packed a punch, even through the protective layer of nerfhide - and slipped through the permaseal door, touching the pane behind him to restore the wall's smooth and seamless integrity.

"Master," he addressed the senior Jedi, warily.

The Councilor's dark features smoothed into habitual stern serenity. Almost. "You could teach a class of monkey lizards something about acrobatics," he observed, drily.

"Thank you." The young Knight grimaced ruefully. He would take what he could get in the way of compliments from this particular source. "I learned early. Master Qui-Gon generally overrode the _safety-deactivate_ feature when we worked with remotes… he always said that genuine foes would not cease firing the moment I dropped my saber or took a hit."

Their boots padded a soft synchrony down the marble-tiled floor as they passed under a connecting arch and into the older portion of the dojo suite.

"We'll credit your skill at survival to his maverick pedagogy, then, "Master Windu decided. "You are, as of this moment, the only Jedi in a thousand years to face a Sith in mortal combat and survive."

Couched in such terms, the bitter encounter sounded almost glorious. "I would rather do without the title." He was also the only Jedi in a thousand years to face a Sith whatsoever, so the honor was somewhat hollow anyway.

The Korun nodded, grimly. "Wise. I understand. But the fact remains, and all things that happen within the Force happen for a _reason_."

Obi-Wan opted to hold his peace and wait for the rest of the revered Jedi master's statement… there was surely some pointed question or revelation yet unspoken.

He was not disappointed. "The Dark is interested in you," the Korun said, brutally direct. "You'd better be interested back."

Unpleasant. He released a slow centering breath. "No chance of ignoring this until it goes away of its own accord?"

Master Windu acknowledged the quip with a fleet sideways glance, the white of his eyes a crisp glimmer of light about liquid ebony pools. Humor sparked and faded within the Force's depths. "…_No,"_ he grimly replied, baritone voice a gong note of warning to friend and foe alike. "But you needn't face the reality of this situation _alone._ Come speak with me." He waved open the door to a dim classroom on the left, a clear invitation. Or command.

The young Jedi braced himself. Because _nothing happens without a reason, _ and _we come to serve._ Dipping his head in respect, he led the way into the private chamber, Mace Windu on his heels.

If the Dark was interested in him, then yes: he'd better be interested back. And in good company.

* * *

Anakin polished off his third official meal in the Jedi Temple with all the gustatory relish of a growing eight year old boy accustomed to periodic bouts of privation.

"Do you _always_ eat so much?" Zhoa Pleromata wondered aloud, black eyes widening to astonished saucers.

Her tow-headed companion rumpled his nose. "Uh…no?"

"Well, don't forget there's more at midday, and at last-meal. You needn't load up like you're a niffenbear preparing to hibernate," the young Nautolan teased.

Anakin blinked, and nodded, a small flush of embarrassment creeping over his cheeks. _Plenty_ was a concept he'd dreamed about for as long as he could remember – but that didn't amount to any familiarity with it in practice. He was suddenly conscious that he lacked a certain savior faire, and was therefore equally certain that every other youngling in the spacious dining hall was staring at him. "They don't have to _gawk,"_ he complained.

Zhoa's silpa-beads and headtails swished gently as she craned her head about, beating back the curious inquisition of several dozen younglings with a ferocious _I-am-a-padawan-to-a-Knight_ scowl. The initiates went back to their breakfast with bowed heads and suitably chastised expressions.

"They just want to know who you are," she explained. "We don't get many visitors your age… and are you going to stay? I mean, forever?"

Anakin gulped down his last mouthful and choked. _Forever._ Without Mom.

"I… don't know." He hadn't considered how _long_ this 'safety' measure might endure. Mister Qui-Gon had said something about acquiring skills, sufficient knowledge to protect himself…. How quickly could he accomplish that goal? A year? Less?

Zhoa passed him a tall cup of water, which he drank down in one long go. It wasn't wasteful, he reaonsed with himself, because everyone here did it – they didn't savor and sip the water, they didn't chew succulents and grow _meelermons_ and stuff to get enough liquids in their diet – they just drank gallons and gallons of water, like it fell from the sky or something.

The awareness of _vast_ wealth – hoarded treasures on all sides: food, water, clothing, the luxuriant architecture, the easy contempt with which the Jedi treated all possessions, an indifference that echoed the casual profligacy of wealth-glutted Hutt lords – made him abruptly dizzy. He gripped the edge of their shared table. "So, uh…. What now?" he asked. He was afloat on a sea of freedom and affluence, and yet he felt as though he was flailing, drowning in a foreign abundance.

His Nautolan escort pulled out a small datapad and consulted it, green brows furrowing slightly as she tapped and scrolled through various information fields. "It says you are to enjoy the hospitality of the public areas and the residential level until the Council summons you," she shrugged.

"Is that your very own 'pad?" he enthused. "Wizard!"

Zhoa glanced up, bemused. "We all have one. When I travel with my master, I can do my classes on this… and it links to the Archives database, too."

"What's the Archives?" Maybe it was like a junk shop, a repository of wonders: spare parts, bits and pieces, instruction manuals and cybernetic scraps. A rummaging pile, a _collection _or a vault of marvels, as the name implied.

"Our library!" his guide exclaimed. "The oldest and the best in the galaxy." Her chest swelled in pride.

But the explanation manifestly fell flat. "A… a collection of books," she added, peering perplexedly at the newcomer. "And other things, too. Of _knowledge."_

"I've never seen a library," Anakin admitted, addressing his empty plate. _Backworld bumpkin_,he cursed, inwardly. _It's not my fault. _ _ I don't need a stupid book collection to get knowledge._

Zhoa, oblivious to his discomfiture, or else mistaking it for awe, prattled on about the merits and wonders of the Archives, about holovolumes and interactive texts and treatises and textbooks and the Archivist and many other things, ending with a bright suggestion that they go there now and while away the morning hours in _reading,_ an idea she clearly cherished.

The boy from Tatooine squirmed where he sat. "Are there any books in Huttese?" He had _seen_ the aurebesh before – instruction manuals always had five or six language options, but he had gravitated naturally to the easy choice, his native tongue.

"Um… probably."

He could read Huttese, and speak Basic, Bocci, and some Jawa besides…. but a sinking feeling in his gut told him that the vast majority of tomes – and database entries – would be in the galaxy's united lingua franca, not the guttural lexicon of Nal Hutta's obscene rulers. The _Republic _ was united by language, currency, law, custom, economy, and history_._ Tatooine could lay claim to none of these, existing in its own obscure orbit outside the virtual boundaries of _civilization._

He was _illiterate,_ from the Jedi point of view. "I can't read the Aurebesh," he blurted out, almost accusatorily. He was _free,_ but he wasn't. He'd missed out on eight years of… education. Personhood. It stung. "….Everyone will make fun of me."

However, Zhoa tackled this problem with the same earnest pragmatism she had used to interpret the unfamiliar menu in the refectory for him. "Oh! No, they won't. Derogation of others is _forbidden."_

Lots of stuff was forbidden, Anakin was coming to see, but this particular rule he could embrace for the moment. _Being unable_ was the worst thing in the whole universe, an aching lacuna that never healed. And even if others didn't _derogate_ him – whatever that meant – he would never feel easy in himself, when he was debarred from a power or ability that he _should_ possess.

"It' easy," his new friend assured him. "I can teach you. Come on… we can borrow a reader."

"Okay," he agreed, reluctantly shoving his tray into the collection rack and following her out the wide double doors. What he really wanted to do was be a _hero…_but he could start by learning his letters all over again.

At least he wouldn't be lonely.

* * *

"Are you well, Master?"

Chiros' twin cranial horns curved down to either side of his sallow, angular face; the Iktotchi Knight peered critically at his superior, a glint of alarm flashing in deep-set golden eyes.

Yan Dooku, for his part, found this uncharacteristically solicitous inquiry sufficiently distracting to rouse him from deepest introspection, a furling-inward of mind which must appear nearly catatonic to the outsider. He stirred, opening half-hooded eyes and bringing their piercing focus to bear on his counterpart. "There is no obstacle _insuperable_ to the Force and the proper application of skill," he declared, fingers knit into a bony double rampart before him.

Chiros dipped his head. "That creature…. his defenses are like none we have ever encountered."

"Like none _you_ have ever encountered," the aging Sentinel corrected him. Those who had trod far off the beaten road, who had ventured into the shadowed vales and dells where dwelt the galaxy's _outcasts,_ the thousand fold spawn of the Dark – their power vitiated by the ascendancy of Light, but steadily augmenting their strength and numbers as some catastrophic tipping point within history again approached – one who had traveled into such perilous realms knew of their ways.

Though he had not yet met any so well versed in _black magic,_ save the matriarch of Dathomir's twisted sorority. The Zabrak was…. unique, in that respect. Mother Talzin had enjoyed the benefit of centuries' slow accumulation of knowledge, while this callow Iridonian prisoner must only have only a decade's training beneath his belt. And yet, he had resisted the most potent attack possible, repelled a virulent assault upon his spirit that would have left a lesser being gibbering and writhing, begging for respite.

"What shall we do, then, if he proves so obstinate?"

Dooku stroked his silver beard. "He is obsessed with Kenobi. Perhaps we shall let him _hang_ upon his own rope, as it were."

The Iktotchi folded his hands into opposite sleeves, scowling dubiously. "As you say, Master Dooku."

"Indeed," the senior Jedi murmured.

There were blades of Light, as well as Dark; they had but to be wielded by a Master to be _most_ efficacious. And Dooku was a renowned swordsman.

Nor was he accustomed to losing a contest.


	7. Chapter 7

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

_**Interruptions**_

"I 'm not keeping you from anything _important,_ am I?"

Obi-Wan settled in the worn plastimold chair opposite Ben To Li's personal favorite and accepted the ritual tea offering with a small nod. His brows rose delicately, with the coiling tendrils of _tarine-_scented steam. "It would be highly impolitic for me to dismiss Master Windu's private counsel as _inconsequential."_ He took a cautious sip, savoring the subtle tannins and rich overtones. "However, it would also be dishonest to imply the interruption was a source of resentment."

The Temple's senior healer cocked an amused brow. "Ah yes, some forms of wisdom are to be imbibed in moderation. Like certain potent spices, or raw sarasata peppers, hmm?"

"Oh… ah, yes." The young Knight took refuge from the mortifying recollection of _that_ youthful indiscretion in another long draught of tea.

Ben To settled comfortably in his own seat, idly levitating a datapad across the short distance to his guest. "I do not enjoy exhuming unwelcome memories, per se," he apologized, " But here is another."

His companion frowned over the enigmatic contents of the 'pad, turning it this way and that. He smiled wanly. "I am no statistician," he confessed. "You can ask Master Pakkra. He despaired of me well before I ever reached Senior Padawan. He said I was inherently blind to mathematical sublimity and to any consideration of good or bad odds. But it hasn't seemed to hurt too much in the long run."

The healer only stroked his thin pointed beard with one knobbly hand. "Just tell me what you see," he commanded, eyes half-hooded and chin tipped back contemplatively. "The _lay_ perspective sometimes captures the essence of things with more pith and substance than an expert's rambling."

"I see… numbers. Three series of them. In each case, they increase…. Slowly, at first… then exponentially."

"Not _quite,"_ Ben To chuckled. "But in ascending and increasing pattern – not a steady growth, but a burgeoning one. What does that call to your mind – if you were to hazard a guess regarding these numbers?"

Obi-Wan released a short breath of exasperation. "Riddles, Master?"

"What else?"

"Well then, increasing pressure in a closed chamber perhaps. Or something reaching a critical mass. Radioactive signatures? Or is biological? A contagion pattern. Toxin aggregation? Multiplication of neuron connections over the course of skill acquisition? " A short pause. "You do know that Master Seva said _to measure the Force is the shackle running water?"_

The silver-haired Jedi snorted. _"You_ are over-educated. And Master Seva did not know everything. These are, in fact, midichlorian counts."

Obi-Wan scowled. "But they change – and some of the counts are far too high. Especially this last one."

"It's a projection." When this assertion evoked only further bemusement, the healer clasped his hands together and leaned forward, elbows upon his cluttered desk. "Shall I reveal to you the meaning of this cipher? The first series of counts is your own – no, don't scoff – taken three years ago, at a time I doubt you wish to dwell upon."

A terse dip of the head. And a deeper frown yet. "But …. I couldn't touch the Force," the younger man objected. His hand grazed over his neck, seeking an impalpable scar. "The inhibitor – and that Sith-damned _cell_ in the thanatosine level…"

"Exactly!" Ben To leaned forward further still. "I took the liberty of checking several times. Every time I visited you, under pretext of monitoring your vitals. The longer the Council kept you imprisoned, the more the midichlorians built up in your cells – to a nearly explosive intensity, I might remark." He slatted his eyes. "I said nothing at the time. It was unimportant, and I could offer no particular hypothesis to account for it."

Obi-Wan's grip tightened about the 'pad's molded edges. "But you have one now."

"Perhaps…. The second series pertains to Master Qui-Gon – in the short time he's been here, his count has reached well above his personal baseline."

The man's former apprentice blinked. "But he's… "

"Suspended? Do you really think the Force cares a whit for such things? He sleeps the sleep of the dead, and yet Life still clamors in his veins. Peculiar. The cells themselves are in a condition similar to cryogenic stasis, and yet the midichlorians reproduce frantically. There is no biological explanation whatsoever."

"I still don't understand, Master…. And to whom do these last belong?"

Ben To leaned back perilously far in his seat, drawing in a pensive breath. "That shocking measurement is your little Tatooinian friend's count – one taken by Qui-Gon many days ago, and another drawn by me here in the Temple. The other numbers are a long term projection based on the growth rate."

The younger Jedi stopped himself from gawking by an act of will. "What does that _mean?" _ he inquired, helplessly.

"It means your pawky street urchin is poised to be the most powerful Force wielder the galaxy has seen in many a century."

Obi-Wan looked up sharply. "Have you told the Council?"

"…Should I?"

The datapad flipped back onto the desktop with an appalled snap – one echoed by the abrupt righting of Ben To's chair. The two men stared at each other across a short space electric with unspoken thought.

"The boy is dangerous."

But the protestation fell upon obstinately unyielding ears. "I know a great deal about dangerous men," the healer snipped. . "And among those scraps of wisdom I have gleaned – the hard way – is this: the difference between a great heart and a blackguard lies often enough in their beginnings. You should have more sympathy for one accused of _dangerous potential._ Would you have the child imprisoned, as you were?"

A hissing intake of breath. "I do not – "

"Would you have him turned over to the Sentinels for _questioning?"_

Obi-Wan rose to his feet, bristling. "You put words in my mouth."

"Then don't bandy about phrases like _dangerous_ until you've looked well and long into a mirror, Kenobi. And then had a good look around you, at every denizen of this Temple." Ben To stood, huffily straightening the skewed hems of his robes. "But I digress. Think on these numbers I've shown you. Tell me what they mean, and I'll give you a muja-lolly."

Humor smoothed the Force's restless susurration. "Well, then. For such a noble cause, I shan't falter in my resolve."

"Good." The senior Jedi touched his younger companion's arm. "And forgive an old man's testiness. May the Force be with you."

* * *

He ran into Garen Muln again, in the connecting passage. His hoverchair thrummed to a standstill, repulsors growling subliminally.

The injured padawan grimaced. "Knight Kenobi," he greeted his lifelong friend, deference honed to a cutting edge.

Obi-Wan winced at the uncongenial salutation. "Garen."

The silence between them was a profanity in and of itself. "Well." Garen's shoulders rose, in affected diffidence. "I've pressing affairs here… and you've the same elsewhere." He jerked his chin toward the bacta room beyond, where the tanks of viscous glop stood shrouded in dimness.

"Of course."

Two assistant healers appeared, all brusque efficiency and preoccupation with _gross matter,_ to shepherd their patient away. He went meekly, haggard features tight and inscrutable, habitual jocularity forgotten.

The two escorts made Obi-Wan an awkward bow before they apologetically shut the intervening panel in his face.

A _dangerous man_ would have cut the door down with his 'saber, charged into the chamber, wrecked a few of the bacta tanks, and properly accosted the haughty son of a dimwitted gundark within – but he was not a _dangerous man._

So he pulled his cowl up and stormed quietly out of the Halls instead.

* * *

"Oh! Zhoa Pleromata peeped, glancing at her commlink with bulging opalescent eyes. "We're to go. Now. To the south spire."

Beside her, Anakin suspended his perusal of the aurebesh, one finger still tracing _grek's_ softly angled contours. "What's in the south spire?"

His Nautolan comrade goggled. "The Council!" she exclaimed. "They want to talk to you _personally." _ She stole a furtive glance about them, at the Archives' hushed aisles and alcoves, then continued in a subdued tone. "They _never_ talk to initiates or anybody so young _alone."_

A queasy twist made itself felt beneath Anakin's ribs. "Totally alone? I'm not.. in trouble, am I? I'm following all the rules and stuff."

Regrettably, Zhoa had no easy assurance to offer. "I don't know," she confessed. "But I'll wait for you outside. Maybe they just want to know about your homeworld? It sounds fascinating."

Ludicrous as the notion of Jedi warriors taking an interest in Tatooine's rank and dreary affairs might be, he clung to this thread of hope. Mister Qui-Gon had cared about his impecunious and backward world of origin, at least enough to care about _him,_ so maybe the Council just had some questions about that fat sleemo Jabba, or about Watto's shop. He could give like a whole _class_ on swindling customers with cheaply refurbished hyperdrive components if that's what they wanted.

"We have to go," Zhoa urged. "That's what it says." She flipped his reader shut and shoved it into a carrel. "Come on."

"Okay, okay." The blond boy slipped off his chair and braced himself, puffing out his chest. "I can handle it."

At least, he hoped he could. It couldn't be any more difficult or perilous than podracing, could it?

* * *

Despite his sequestered location in a remote meditation chamber in one of the older wings, there was no true _solitude_ to be found. At least not when Yan Dooku had set his mind upon having a _conversation._

"Pardon the intrusion," the master Sentinel purred, overriding the door's triple privacy lock with a casual flick of his wrist. "But there is a matter we must discuss."

Vexed, Obi-Wan opened his eyes and cast a baleful glare upon the trespasser. "With respect, Master, could this not wait?"

Dooku merely took the liberty of turning up the small incense-laden chamber's lights and activating the self-cleaning air cycler. He paced the circular perimeter once, then swiveled on the spot, cloak flowing sinuously in his wake. "Destiny does not wait upon our illumination; it is rather the other way 'round."

The young Knight found his feet, suppressing an audible grumble. "I'm beginning to think Destiny is an ill-mannered lout."

Dooku's smile was a pale moon-crescent, swiftly waning to sobriety. "Then it merely reflects the commensurate scarcity of breeding in the present generation. But come; we shall seek a more private venue."

There was hardly any more _sheltered_ locale within the entire Temple, but Obi-Wan had enough wit to reserve this thought to himself alone. "As you wish." Some battles could not be avoided, but only deferred to one's own disadvantage; if his former mentor wished to hold an exclusive war council, he would oblige sooner rather than later.

An elegant gesture ushered him out the door. "I have been neglectful of my good cousin of late," the Sentinel lamented. "He is an exclusive restaurateur here on Coruscant, and pines like a jilted diva if I do not pay patronage to his establishment at least once every cycle…. Do be my guest."

Obi-Wan's brows rose. "Ah, but is a hankering for mollusks-on-the-half-shell and pate-du-shuurgal-gras becoming of a Jedi?"

"I should think not." A contemptuous snort. "But his cellar is unparalleled outside Serreno, Pardu'aa, and the Stewardship. Come along."

They paced together through the arched colonnades of the Temple, the younger man falling wryly into step beside the older. Dooku's dark charisma exerted – he would readily admit – an alluring gravitational pull of its own, and he fell with alarming rapidity back into the famed Shadow's orbit, a retrograde star never quite tamed yet not so unruly as to stray entirely from its foredained path. They circled uneasily about the same mysterious center, upon the brink of some black event horizon, the edge of some future both sensed yet neither fully understood.

Those who were called upon to withstand the Dark were, all personal quirks aside, bound in a grim brotherhood of purpose, and must raise their blades together or fall.

They blasted out into the city-planet's night sky and were swallowed into the skylanes' endless ribbons of shooting stars.


	8. Chapter 8

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 8**

_**Interview**_

The first thing Anakin noticed about the light-drenched chamber at the south spire's pinnacle was the _view._ Aircars whizzed and cavorted in liquid streams outside the curved plexisteel enclosure, flocks of bright streamlined avians, models and makes he'd never seen - polished, new, expensive, outfitted with mouth-watering drive arrays, decorative fins and running boards, posh grav-field bubbles, a myriad of artisan's wares on display for his delectation.

He almost forgot that he was standing before a half-dozen of the most powerful beings in the galaxy.

That was the second thing he noticed: although half the chairs in the circular room stood empty, the place was full to bursting, a tiny crystal vial bottling a handful of supernovas. He cringed, gritting his teeth against the sense of claustrophobia. Tatooine was all emptiness and space, infinite basins of it… but this – this was _too much._

And then the pressure eased, as though the luminaries purposefully eclipsed themselves. He squinted round at the solemn faces in the room…. A kind woman, golden skinned and smiling, a Cerean – he guessed – with his conical head and a white beard, a truly terrifying man with skin the color of roasted argees, a short fellow with an eye patch and a twisted mien, a Quermian – a real one – with head wavering steadily atop his white spindle neck, and the most outlandish green troll he'd ever laid eyes on.

Every kind of person in the universe drifted through Mos Espa's disreputable avenues sooner or later, or else had been described to him by eager spacers – but neither observation nor eager recounting had conjured up anything like this last Jedi. He was shorter than Anakin, and wrinkled so deeply he looked like the parched and cracked rock-soil of the desert's upper plateaus after midsummer. His ears were pointed and waggled comically about his head, which was crowned by unruly, wisping silver hair. But his eyes were the most alarming thing about him. They opened wide and jewel-like, eerily similar to a Hutt's and yet profoundly different: for while the vermiform people's glazed pupils seemed to open onto treacherous and inscrutable inner expanses, these gold-green orbs reflected back the depths of the beholder, a shifting mirror in which his thoughts and his own mesmerized, half-apalled gaze were multiplied down an infinite corridor, a path leading to some shadowed terminus, a vanishing point he dared not contemplate.

Anakin looked down first, and shifted uneasily. It was like they could see _through_ him.

"What feel you, young one?" the troll queried, in a voice rough-textured as his skull.

In such company, prevarication was a simple impossibility. He twisted his hands before him, clenching the fingers hard against one another. "Cold, sir."

He missed home – the pervasive heat, the echoing emptiness, his mother.

The gentle woman addressed him next. There was a jewel set on her brow, and she was very beautiful. He wondered if she were one of the Ienglis, rumored to be the most ravishing creatures in existence.

"They say," she murmured, thoughtfully, "That fear runs cold while anger runs hot. What is it that you fear?"

"Nothing," Anakin insisted, jutting his chin out.

"Pshaw!" the small burly fellow with the eyepatch retorted. One side of his face contorted into a wry smile. "If dat were true, you could teach every one of us in dis Council. Are you already so wise?"

Anakin wasn't sure where this line of inquiry was headed. He shrugged, sheepishly. "I know an awful lot about podracing," he offered. "If you're interested."

This earned him a smile from the Cerean, who watched quietly with fingers steepled together, but a scowl from the intimidating man with the bald head.

"I'm interested," the latter person said. He reclined in his chair with an easy grace reminiscent of a full-grown dominant krayt dragon, exuding palpable power and a definite _lack of fear - _ so that was all right for _some people,_ anyway. "Podracing is very fast. Very dangerous."

"I know, sir." They were back on solid ground now, familiar territory. "I'm the only human who can do it!"

"I daresay," the Cerean commented, mildly.

"Tell us vat else you can do," Eyepatch suggested.

Anakin warmed to the subject. He could present an impressive resume, when it came down to it. "I can fix pretty much anything," he told them. "As long as its mechanical. I'm working on cybernetics now. I really want to build a protocol droid, actually. And I can speak Huttese and Bocci, and some Jawa too. And I can tell what people are thinking mostly and if they're cheating or not and stuff. I'm really good at hiding and sneaking around like in games or whatever. And I can add in my head and multiply and stuff like that – I'm really good at math, Mom said so and Watto too. And I don't just fly racers. I'm a great pilot."

"You've flown a spacecraft?" the Cerean asked, bushy brows rising.

"Well, not exactly." Apologetic nose-scrunch. "But I _could._ I know I could. I can… I dunno. Feel it, I guess."

The troll was watching him so, so keenly it made him want to melt into the floor. "Dreams, have you?"

How did he know? Anakin blanched; the room was abruptly cold again. "Sometimes," he admitted, in a hushed squeak. He didn't like to speak of his dreams – the ones that came true, the ones that had him bolting awake in a night-sweat, heart racing and breath coming in great heaving gasps. That was when Shmi held him and sang to him, when nothing but her arms could assuage the _icy_ dread clawing from within.

The Jedi exchanged glances among themselves, a tight interplay of crossing and re-crossing looks binding the circle of judge into a living and moving knot.

"I wonder," the tall man at the head of this tribunal said, "If you would play a simple game with us? A _guessing_ game, you might call it."

It was clear that his acquiescence was _expected; _ but Anakin would rather play a game than answer riddles, or bare his soul any further. Besides, a game was something you could _win,_ while this uncomfortable examination was manifestly not.

"Okay," he said.

* * *

The maitre-d' was a heavily mustached and dour-faced Aqualish, who heaped summary vituperation upon a half-dozen of the menu selections before pointedly recommending the chef's special, a delicacy originating on his own homeworld.

"Very well," Dooku acquiesced, an edge of impatience in his tone. "And we will require a suitable vintage to pair with it."

Ah," their opinionated if obsequious host murmured, "Would your Honor care to peruse the wine list?"

"No," the silver haired Jedi retorted. "Just be sure its quality adequately compensates for the meal."

"Of course, of course, such an honor to serve you," the Aqualish simpered, scooting away with many an elaborate bow.

"He's going to induce vertigo if he bobs up and down any more," Obi-Wan observed, a pang of pity for the sycophantic creature making itself felt despite his dark amusement.

His companion waved such sentiment aside, unfurling his hand-cloth with an elegant flourish. "He is far preferable to my cousin, who is a monument to jocund fatuity."

Within minutes they were supplied with a dust grimed bottle, uncorked before their eyes and poured with liturgical solemnity into broad-rimmed glasses. The appetizer course was laid before them a moment later: the unforgettable, incomparable, peerless aroma of freshly hatched, squirming quanta worms on thin-crusted _bastachio_ bread wafted boldly up from the delicate serving plates.

Obi-Wan beat a full retreat, opting to cleanse his assaulted senses with a deep draught of wine.

"Excellent." Dooku consumed his own portion with evident delight, then cocked a sardonic brow at his companion. "Come now, my friend. The chef will be mortally offended."

The second serving made a discreet Force-assisted slide across the table. "By all means, Master, I entreat you to forestall the imminent diplomatic disaster."

The alacrity with which Dooku assuaged the chef's purported wounded feelings was suggestive of genuine pleasure in the culinary masterpiece– though the swift emptying of half his glass afterward might have provided a telling counterargument.

"Soup?" the hovering waitron queried.

Both Jedi murmured their enthusiastic encouragement and were duly provided with a far less perilous bowl of spiced broth and shellfish. The fare was delectable; the vintage yet more so.

The elder man refilled both glasses. "Tell me about Qui-Gon," he commanded. His deepset eyes glittered beneath hawk-like brows. "And please… _partake."_

Understanding the meaning and motive behind this admonition – or permission – did not deter the young Knight from complying, against his own judgment. There were _some_ few topics he did not care to broach in a condition of full and mindful sobriety, for that had occupied the better part of his day already. "It is not good to dwell upon it," he objected, tightly.

"He was my padawan learner, once," the Sentinel reminded his reluctant companion. "I should like to know."

"I have made a full report to the Council."

Dooku raised one brow. "Which doubtlessly letter-perfect recitation I missed, due to pressing concerns of another nature. Spare me the official abridgement; what transpired?" He leaned forward, a spark bordering on _passion_ kindling in his grey and penetrating gaze.

Obi-Wan watched this unlikeliest transformation with a wariness bred of bitter-edged experience; there were not many things left in the tired world that could enflame the smoldering embers of Dooku's spirit. The aging Jedi master embodied a jaded elegance, his service a noblesse oblige more than any callow Knight's quest, his wisdom not the passionate devotion of a lover but the easy possession of one to the manner born; it was the rare chord that could strike a resonant note in his supremely self contained soul.

"The _Sith_ happened," he replied, a commensurate fire stirring beneath his own ribs. He drained his glass.

Dooku refilled it, knuckles whitening as his long fingers curled into a quietly irate fist. "In what manner?" he demanded.

"I don't know." The wine's warming influence, unfettered by the usual ascetical restraints, spread like a hot balm through his veins, carrying the silt of recent memory with it, flushing the bitter flotsam of experience away, away, into a flood of unabashed _emotion._ He met the Sentinel's eyes - and found not the cool reserve so habitually reflected there, but rather a storm-sky fretted with incipient lightning. "That vile _excrescence _had somehow overpowered him by the time I arrived. He was waiting, with Qui-Gon hostage. He wanted me to _see_ it."

Dooku's mouth thinned into a pitiless line. "Suffering is the relish to their meat; you know this."

Obi-Wan nodded, mind drifting back to that fateful moment when the crimson blade struck home, to the sudden contraction of all the desert's heat, all the suns' merciless glare, to a single awful point just above his own solar plexus, a scorching brand of ownership, of _domination._ He did not care to recollect what came next, the volcanic explosion of his wrath, the _consuming_ tide of power that had burst, magmaic and scalding, through his every barrier and unleashed itself in limitless fury upon the enemy.

A Jedi knows not hate.

"It was you who struck off his hand," Dooku murmured, emptying his own glass again. "It was well done."

"I acted in … anger, Master."

"You answered an atrocity with justice, " the Sentinel amended. "You would have done better to strike him down entirely, perhaps. Qui-Gon should not go unavenged, nor Yarris Moll."

The word _vengeance_ was not one traditionally expected to pass the lips of a senior-ranking Jedi master; Dooku imbued it with a cold sanctity, the gravitas of a sacred charge. And here: surrounded by the refined pomp of the millennia-old Republic's coreworld affluence, that which would have in another destiny's path have been either or both their birthright, the distilled bounty of ten different worlds blossoming liquid in their bellies, mutually nurturing an inexpressible and forbidden grief for a felled comrade – student, teacher, friend - _here _they might look upon each other as two men separated by five decades in time but a mere hairsbreadth chiaroscuro-shade of perspective, of _intent._

"What would you say," Dooku broke the mesmerizing silence, "if I told you we have the creature in our custody?"

"What?" Obi-Wan nearly upset his glass. Only Force-enhanced reflexes saved the tablecloth from a bleeding stain of astonishment.

"We were waiting in ambush above the planet's orbital well," the older Jedi explained. "Qui-Gon sent a compelling transmission shortly before your encounter with the Sith. I felt it incumbent upon the Shadows to _act._ He was already compromised by his battle with you."

"_You have him? Where?"_

Dooku's aristocratic visage was grave as he decanted the last of the wine into his glass. It pooled in a dark meniscus, a subtle black-crimson silt floating atop the dregs. "In the Temple," he replied. "Where else?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 9**

_**Alliance**_

Anakin was getting bored.

"A cup. A speeder. A tall building. A bantha-thing with longer horns, I don't know the name for it. A starship. A leaf. A ball. A pyramid." How long were they going to play this inane game? The dark-complected Councilor held a small screen before his own eyes, the opaque casing facing Anakin – but the man might as well have been screaming the answers aloud for all to hear. Anakin could practically _see_ each successive image as it flashed across the display screen.

The Jedi exchanged another round of indecipherable glances and finally called the farce to a close.

Anakin shifted nervously. "I haven't been to school," he said, tentatively, "But I could do harder stuff. Really." Why would they subject him to a baby game like that? Did they think he was stupid? Or was it some kind of test … maybe of his patience?

The gnarled green troll watched him with hooded gimlet eyes. "Practiced this, you have not."

"No." It was really cold now, and he was super choobazzi hungry again. It was dark outside now, and had been for a long while. And all the grown ups were nodding and shooting these dark meaningful looks at one another.

"Thank you," the leader of the Council said, after a long while. His baritone rang off the pale domed ceiling. "Summon Zhoa Pleromata in here," he added, to the hooded figure lingering discreetly by the interior doors.

When the young Nautolan entered, she didn't even _blink_ in Anakin's direction or anything. She went straight to the center of the floor, where the concentric inlaid patterns culminated in an empty circle, and bowed low, bending her body almost in half. Her silpa bead chain dangled over one shoulder, with her stubby headtails.

"Zhoa," the gentle woman on the left commanded, "Please take our guest back to quarters. We will summon him if he is needed again. "

"Yes, Master," the padawan peeped, and tugged Anakin's sleeve, pulling him along in her wake. He thought maybe he was expected to make a bow too, or something, but he sort of awkwardly stumbled as he turned and then they were through the burnished portals and safe inside the quiet antechamber once more.

Only they weren't alone.

"Mister Obi-Wan sir!" He looked _mad, _ like maybe when he blitzed that creepy guy on Tatooine. It was tempting to take a step backward, but his hard expression instantly softened upon beholding the two younglings.

Zhoa beamed widely then looked down, a shy blush spreading over mottled features.

The door guard held up a gloved hand, palm outward. "The Council is in special session; the chamber is sealed," he informed the waiting Knight.

Mister Obi-Wan didn't look too happy about that. His eyes flashed. "It concerns a matter of _some consequence,"_ he growled.

This imperious assertion was no magic key, however. The guard dipped his head. "I will convey your message, Knight Kenobi, or you may wait."

Anakin watched all emotion abruptly flee the young Jedi's face, which was far more frightening than any display of pique might have been. He bowed, slow and ironically, then pivoted on his heel, sweeping into the lift. He held the doors open for them with an upraised hand. Zhoa grasped her new friend's wrist and tugged him into the small carriage before he could issue objection.

Obi-Wan flicked two fingers at the control panel, sending them shooting downward to the spire's base.

Somebody had to break the awkward silence. "You're mad, huh?" Anakin blurted.

That got him an icy look, one that said _don't ever ask that again._ He scrunched his nose and tried to wrap his head around this new but plainly evident facet of Jedi culture: _nobody_ around here talked about their feelings, even though they obviously had them. Zhoa was cringing where she stood, embarrassed on his behalf, as though he had publicly mentioned flatulence or defecation.

All these dumb unspoken rules were sort of irritating, actually. "E'chuta," he grumbled.

The Nautolan padawan tilted her head to one side, bemusedly.

Mister Obi-Wan arched one brow, not even looking at Anakin. "The sentiment is mutual," he said, voice barely inflected, face impassive.

They hit the bottom with a muffled whoosh, the anti-grav resistance field absorbing the downward impetus in a soft rush. The polished door panels slid open, admitting them into a soaring hall lined with columns and flanked by immense statues.

"Whoa!" the Tatooinian boy exclaimed. The Jedi Temple went on forever in all directions. It might be bigger on the inside than the outside, he thought. There were an _awful_ lot of dizzying spaces enclosed within its massive edifice.

"The Hall of Concordant Fraternity, and the reverend patrons thereof," Mister Obi-Wan explained, waving a vague hand at the bronzium sentinels. "…Zhoa, you must be exhausted."

The shy Nautolan mumbled some unconvincing denial.

"I'll take Anakin back to quarters… why don't you find Feld and then get some rest?"

Zhoa's black pearl eyes gleamed with gratitude. "Thank you, Master." She bobbed up and down again, headtails bouncing, and then dashed away to fulfill this welcome mandate.

Anakin was tired, and he'd had enough. "How come everybody is each other's masters around here, if the Jedi are all Fraternal and Concordant and stuff?" he demanded. "I don't get it."

They set off across the polished marble floor. Anakin had to scamper a bit to keep up with his companion's vexedly long stride, but that was okay. Most the Jedi he'd met thus far, except Zhoa, had talked at him or about him or right over his head. But he had this funny tingly feeling down his spine right now that Mister Obi-Wan would actually talk _to_ him.

"Brothers among ourselves, servants of the Force," came the terse reply. But it wasn't an outright dismissal, so the blond boy took that as permission to push harder.

"I thought the Force was good? SO why would it have servants? And if the Force is the source of all power and stuff, then why would it even _need _ servants?"

The young Knight stopped, momentarily, and favored hi s small charge with a peculiar look, one that pierced past him into some yet-unfurled realm, some point over a curved horizon of possibility. "Because service is not inherently evil; and it is we – and other sentients – who stand to benefit by that service, not the Force itself."

Anakin rumpled his nose yet again. "It still sounds kinda like slavery to me."

Obi-Wan's arms crossed over his chest. "Service is the antithesis of slavery."

"Antisethis?" A shrewd hesitation. "Is that like an isotope or something?"

AT least he had his audience's attention; Mister Obi-Wan didn't evade the question or admit ignorance as Zhoa had done. Instead, he frowned a little, like Kitster used to do when he was thinking really hard about something. Anakin wondered whether the Jedi would stick his tongue out, too, but he was disappointed in this hope. "What is the opposite of slavery?"

"Freedom!" the recently emancipated boy replied. Obvious.

But instead of agreeing, Obi-Wan raised his brows. "Oh? And what is freedom?"

"Doing what you want, of course."

"_Everything_ you want? Even the most privileged free citizen has limited resources and time." They began walking again, wending a sinuous path across the Hall of Concordant Fraternity, not really going anywhere – just sort of wandering, like this very odd conversation.

"Well, I mean, what you _really_ want. The most important things, I mean."

"Which are?"

Mister Obi-Wan had a habit of answering questions with more questions. It was a bit dizzying. "Uh… well, like helping people and blitzing bad guys and stuff, I guess. "

"But how would you know which people to help and which individuals to, ah.. blitz, for lack of a better term? Jabba surely helps those whom he likes, and punishes those whom he deems deserving of such. Is freedom merely being like a Hutt?"

Anakin glanced up in perplexity. How come the Jedi stood everything simple on its head and made it complicated? "No," he retorted, with boundless confidence. "Jabba just serves his _own interest_, but being free means you can…. oh. Aww, poodoo."

There was the barest hint of a smile around the corners of Obi-Wans' eyes, a muted triumph.

Anakin made a gargoylish face. It was like he'd tripped over a hidden obstacle and had his wind knocked out. "Not fair," he grumbled.

"I didn't say anything," Obi-Wan objected, mildly. Which was true, but no less irritating.

"You can't win an argument just by asking questions!"

"I just _did,_ my little friend."

They turned beneath a graceful arch, into a corridor flanking the southern face. Towering windows rose along the right-hand side; Coruscant's spangled night-sky was obscured by the watchful silhouettes of groomed aioli trees outside. Anakin pattered along beside his acquaintance, resenting the abrupt inversion of his certainties, but savoring the implication of _friendship._ "Are we going back to my room now?... 'Cause it's kind of lonely up there."

The young Jedi's mouth twisted wryly, but he said nothing. Instead his eyes slid sideways to the towering shadows beyond the colonnaded panes. The whisper of a thought fluttered against Anakin's mind, far subtler than the image-game in the Council chamber, fraught with overtones and harmonic echoes – and yet somehow crystal sharp, aching like a whip-welt.

"You're upset about Mister Qui-Gon."

The arctic blue glare that met these words flash-froze his next utterance; it shattered and fell as a stammering hail. _"S-sorry,"_ he managed to mumble. "Sorry." Had he ruined their fragile accord with a simple statement? With his inability to discern the invisible _forbiddens_ that lay buried everywhere in the Jedi 's inner realm? He bit down on his lower lip as they came to a forced halt.

Obi-Wan crouched down, one hand lightly touching Anakin's shoulder. "No, I am sorry. I have no right to intimidate you." A weighted hesitance, then, "Qui-Gon is a dear friend."

A vigorous nod. "Your teacher."

"My _master."_ Uttered in that tone, the word took on a connotation of such mingled reverence and affection that Anakin could almost wish to be bound by that same esoteric, utterly foreign yoke, a service that was not slavery, a submission that was not surrender, an obedience that was not groveling . Almost. He squirmed on the spot, somehow more uncomfortable beneath the quiet scrutiny of his present companion than even the green troll's.

"Okay." On Tatooine, one bestowed a token gift to demonstrate contrition for a minor offense. "I'm upset about him, too."

The peace offering was accepted. "He thought that you were special. He would have.. protected you, here. Spoken on your behalf. The least I can do is to honor his intentions in that regard."

It wasn't clear exactly what this entailed, but it felt like a _promise__._ When the Jedi stood again, dark umber cloak skirling about his tall boots, Anakin looked up, the _wizardest,_ most _alarming _thought precipitating within the drought stricken dome of his inner sky. He looked up at the man who could blitz tattooed demons with his laser sword, who could win arguments without even _saying_ anything, who had friends like the gentle Bant and the powerful Qui-Gon Jinn, who made jokes without laughing and didn't gloat when he won, and who – for all intents and purposes – was the only person in this vast confusing labyrinth who really, really understood what it meant to be lonely and missing someone they loved .. and wondered why the whole universe seemed to shift beneath his feet, reeling with giddy revelation.

Obi-Wan reached out a hand to steady himself, like he felt it too… and then he blinked hard several times.

"Whoa," Anakin breathed, not daring to make mention of it lest he violate another taboo.

Apparently this was a prudent decision. The young Knight deftly changed topics, a fleet sand-kite darting this way and that upon a hot wind. "If you find your present accommodations lonely, perhaps we can have you stay in one of the clan dormitories."

"I dunno… I mean, the healers said, and… I don't want to be any trouble. " Or break any more rules. "Can you do that? I mean, do you have the authority?"

This time Obi-Wan actually smiled. He had dimples, which made him look kinda like a little boy. Which was funny, for a Jedi Knight, Sworn Guardian of Galactic Peace, if you thought about it. "I have something better," he declared. "I have _connections."_

They set off again, heading for a broad staircase and a connecting concourse high above.

"Where are we going?"

They quickened pace, until Anakin was forced into a jog.

"We are going to introduce you to the incomparable Troon Palo."


	10. Chapter 10

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 10**

_**Roots**_

Troon Palo appeared upon the threshold to his clan dormitory in pronounced dishabille – which is to say, he was wearing nothing but his jet-black silken fur and an expression of affected martyrdom.

"I _just_ got the last stubborn little holdout to bed and you come _knocking_ on my doors at _this _ hour, Kenobi?" The hirsute Jedi's orange eyes flashed alarmingly, one corner of his mouth tweaking up to reveal purple gums and ferocious serrated teeth.

"It is good to see you, too, Master."

"Heh!" A good-natured cuff aimed at the visitor's head was adroitly dodged; Troon balled both enormous fists upon his hips and peered over the visitor's shoulders at the small, very appalled human half-concealed behind the sweep of his cloak. "Who's this?"

Obi-Wan maneuvered his uncharacteristically trepidated companion into a more suitable position, placing steadying hands on the boy's shoulders. "This is Anakin Skywalker, a guest without chaperone. He was assigned quarters on the fourth level, but…"

The clanmaster snorted. "But you want me to adopt him, eh?"

"It's lonely in the other rooms," Anakin supplied, plaintively.

Troon abruptly squatted down upon his massive haunches, rubbing one hand over his hairy pate. "Hmmm. Huummmm." This growling overture was followed by a pointed interrogation. "All right, _Anakin,_ let's see how you measure up. What's the most impressive thing you've ever done?"

"I won the Boonta Eve Classic podrace, sir! I'm the only human ever to be champion!"

The gargantuan Jedi's eyes narrowed. " Illegal sporting competitions, eh? Ever been in a street fight, lad?"

The boy shrugged. "Well, sure. Lots. Hasn't everybody?"

Troon chuckled darkly. "Oh? Did you _win?"_

Anakin craned his head round at Obi-Wan, seeking guidance - but all he got was a bland lift of the brows. "Ummm… mostly, sir."

"Think you can get away with anything, do you?"

Now the boy positively writhed beneath his inquisitor's penetrating gaze. "Well, I mean, not _totally_ anything, but – "

"Think you could get away with anything _on my watch?"_

Blue eyes widened to earnest sapphire pools. "No, sir," came the prompt, and unequivocal answer.

Troon heaved himself upright with a truly awful grin. "He'll be just fine. Fit right in." He extended a paw to the newcomer, clawed digits engulfing the visitor's much smaller hand in a firm grip.

Anakin grimaced upward at his erstwhile escort, seeking reassurance that this was indeed a path of wisdom.

Obi-Wan half-smothered his smirk of amusement. "You can trust Master Palo," he told the uncertain boy. "He raised me, after all."

The clanmaster snorted. "That's no credential to boast of… I raised a hellraiser, is what you're implying."

"As you say, Master. It is a poor student who does not surpass his – "

A second cunningly aimed swipe missed by a hairsbreadth, evoking a deep chuckle on the part of both participants. Anakin watched the byplay with wide eyes, mouth slightly agape.

Troon cocked an eye at their fascinated audience of one. "Scoot on in there, youngling. The others are all asleep, but I'll fix you a spot in a moment."

Anakin withdrew into the dim interior with an impressively meek mien, permitting them a brief private word.

"So," the clanmaster said.

Obi-Wan crossed his arms. "So?"

Troon's purple lips curled sagaciously. "Looking to inspire the next generation , are we?"

"Hardly." An affronted exhalation.

One massive finger poked the young Knight in the chest. "For the record, I approve. But the Council's going to have a conniption."

Obi-Wan shifted in exasperation. "I don't know what you mean."

"The hells you don't. And… I'm sorry about Qui-Gon."

A difficult silence ensued. Then, " It will be as the Force wills."

Troon's third attempt at landing a hit succeeded, taking him quite off guard. A giant paw seized his nerftail and pulled him into an inescapable and quite emphatic one-armed headlock, somewhere between punitive measures and an affectionate embrace.

"All right, you feckless little rapscallion. Scram," the clanmaster sternly admonished, releasing his captive and pulling the sculpted door panels quietly closed behind him.

* * *

The duties of hospitality thus fulfilled – for that is what he had been doing, in delegating Anakin's care to Troon, Obi-Wan told himself – he returned to his ascetically spare temporary quarters.

The Force still bore the ethereal redolence of mandrangea bean blossoms; neither this, nor the dreary thinness of his sleep mattress, assuaged the nervous peregrinations of his mind. An hour spent contemplating the pale ceiling between deep breathing exercises, twenty repetitions of the Lotus-Floating-Upon-Placid-Waters mantra, and a textured recollection of Master Windu's advice to him earlier, and his unrest precipitated like a cold hail, inner tension dissolving into frigid shards of resolution.

_You are a restless spirit, Padawan._

So he was; what of it?

_What would you say if I told you we have the creature in custody?_

He had rather a _few_ things to say about that, but saying was not the point, now was it?

_Ours is to do, not to know._

And you just might get some knowing on the side, at that.

_Ignoring your anger is not defeating it; to suppress the first seedlings of Darkness is not to root them out. Be mindful and face your heart squarely. Do not turn your back upon anger, Obi-Wan: confront it. If the Dark is interested in you, you would do well to be interested back._

He could do better than interested. He could take the direct approach.

* * *

The winding subterranean passage stood unimpeded; each successive downward step carried him deeper into the empty spaces at the roots of the Temple, black-flecked thanatosine entombing him on every side, leaching Light and vitality from the very air, until his very blood seemed to still in his veins, a dammed and sluggish river, turgid with silt.

Emptiness yawned wide at the bottom of this pit; he passed beneath the last arch into a dank antechamber where two hooded and masked guards stood watch. He knew, from bitter former experience in this forsaken place, that the sentinels changed watch every six hours, for no Jedi could be expected reasonably to endure such privation for any long period. This hellhole was reserved for the truly apostate, those among them who had turned their faces toward the abyss and fallen headlong into its seductive embrace. It was a prison built of nothingness, purest void the only power fit to shackle Darkness.

At this nadir point of existence, where being shattered into isolated monads, where life coagulated and curdled about solitary specks in a meaningless ocean, his stomach predictably rebelled, threatening to protest the inversion of proper order, the snuffing of Life's fire into vacuous and nauseating smoke. He splayed one hand on the rough wall, bending over and breathing slowly until the sick spell passed.

The two guards took no notice, or else feigned obliviousness to his plight.

He should not have come down here… and perhaps the excessive indulgence in wine earlier this evening was a contributing factor to the imbalance.

Still, having got this far he was in no mood to surrender the fight.

"I wish to speak with the prisoner," he informed the two robed figures.

"By what mandate?' the nearest demanded. His voice was gruff, and easily recognizable: Chiros, the Iktotchi Sentinel, former padawan to Sifo-Dyas.

Obi-Wan's eyes narrowed. "You may take up the matter with Master Dooku personally," he suggested. "I'm certain he won't resent the imposition upon his time."

Not that Dooku had expressly authorized this visitation; but the revered Shadow's former protege and known associate _could_ throw a bit of vicarious weight around, when needed. Nor did he mistake his man; Chiros shifted about testily, transferring the haft of his energy pike from one gloved fist to the other.

"Very well," he huffed.

The _only_ advantage to the thanatosine enclosure: with the Force so attenuated, so absent, his sincerity or deceit were invisible, his intentions as opaque to his fellows as a solar-tinted viewshield. He could, in theory, tell a bald faced lie without creating a ripple of suspicion, so long as he kept a sabaac face. "Thank you." If his graceful bow had a touch of irony about it, that was just an idle flourish upon the coup.

* * *

The _thing_ was incarcerated behind a glimmering crimson energy field. It stood face to face with him, parted by the barest veil , a mirror's stained surface warping each one unto the other, a molten symmetry of realms, an opposition of like parts.

_Unlike_ parts. Obi-Wan's lip curled, and the Zabrak imitated his contempt, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps in mockery. Or something more... perverse.

Here, where the Force had withdrawn to the furthest margins of being, there was no thunder-roll in the plenum, no fell chaunt prophesying destruction, no lightning blazing on inner horizons. They stood opposed not as pawns in a mighty dejarik game, not as warring principalities, but merely as two creatures of flesh and blood, inextricably compacted by a single obscene act .

The bodiless wall separating them shimmered and crackled beneath the gusting of their breath.

At such close range, the Sith appeared young, possibly younger than even Obi-Wan himself, though it was difficult to gauge. He must be Iridonian; though the painted sigils upon his skin were a satirical variation upon the cultural norm. His cranial horns jutted harshly from a smooth skull, so many budding spears, still short and soft-tipped, the equivalent of a human's first beard. Scraps of black cloth hung over powerful shoulders and chest, a torso marked not only by recent battle but by innumerable healed scars and welts, the tracery of extreme training or else merciless discipline. The Zabrak's right arm terminated in a stump, presently enclosed in a medical stasis band, presumably to prevent necrosis until a prosthetic could be fitted.

If pity or regret stirred within the Force, their feeble protest could not be felt here.

"You killed my _master,"_ Obi-Wan growled, the words rasping up from a throat suddenly closed with . forbidden emotion, that which the stagnant currents could not wash away.

The energy field was not completely impermeable by sound, for the monster's glazed yellow eyes flickered with mephitic satisfaction, slat- pupils dilating. Stained lips drew back over crooked teeth , A capricious and challenging smirk. "I killed a_ weakling_."

"Then you confess to cowardice."

The glib rejoinder provoked a furious snarl. Red sparks cascaded to the black flagstones as the prisoner raked his amputated arm against the field. "Weakness invites destruction. You will _all_ perish, Jedi, for you are grown _weak_ with the passing of time."

The young Knight's mouth curled in disdain. "If you are such a reaper of destruction, then you have made a poor first harvest." His gaze flicked contemptuously to the beast's severed hand, then to the claustrophobic walls.

The Zabrak pivoted angrily on one booted heel and paced side to side, strides consuming the narrow confines of his cell in rapid syncopation, left left turn right right turn left left pause center hold. "I do not think so…. You still _bleed._ You grieve. You _hate._ I have not reaped, but _sown."_

Matched, mirrored, they glowered at one another across an impenetrable wall, the fragile boundary between self and other.

"I don't think so," the young Jedi echoed his enemy's scoffing denial.

_Do not turn your back upon anger._

But the Sith adept was adamant in his conviction. "I struck; you struck back." He held aloft his maimed arm. "Blood for blood, hate for hate, anger for anger."

"No," Obi-Wan retorted, icily. "Had I struck back, your _head_ would now lie beside your scoured bones." Though at the moment, the fateful instant of decision, it had not been a clean beheading he intended. His 'saber had been poised for a brutal _sai tok,_ the cleaving cut, halving the torso at midline – of all fatal blows the only one permitting its subject a moment of full, unmitigated agony before death's oblivion.

The Zabrak licked his blackened lips. "I remember your hate. It burns within you still. It _illumines _you."

_Do not turn your back upon anger._

"You see only your own reflection, Liar."

Yellow lantern eyes flickered gleefully. "You spared me in order that I might suffer here, at the hands of your friends." The prisoner gestured round at the smothering walls. "Behold me now, and say with truth that you do not _relish_ your vengeance."

"Your suffering is deserved; you have brought it upon yourself."

_Do not turn your back upon anger._

"Look in your heart, Jedi: you _enjoy_ my suffering."

_Confront it. Confront your anger._

Obi-Wan unclenched his jaw, the shimmering energy field hypnotic now, a potter's glaze melting to hardened glass beneath kiln-fire. "You are a spawn of Darkness; I _enjoy_ your defeat."

He stepped back a pace, shaking in the aftermath of confession. The void embraced him, wrapped stifling bands of emptiness about him.

His foe leered through the crimson field, a coldly beatific smile contorting his boldly scribed features. "Your hatred is _beautiful. _ I thank you for this gift." A mocking bow ended the interview.

One of them remained interred beneath the Temple's immeasurable edifice, stone and tradition compacted to an immovable foundation stone of order, of peace; the other fled far from this scene of perdition, mounting the long stairway leading from tartarus depths to the threshold of Light, to the graceful domes and arches erected upon the bones of ancient strife, the graveyard of chaos.

And if, in his haste and distress, he felt a tremor quake at the very roots of that millennium-strong fortress, he accounted it an illusion born of his own folly and delusion, and sought refuge in places less defiled, in truths untarnished by the failings of any individual heart, in the Force's boundless currents.

And yet, though he sought meditative quiet until dawn, he found no rest that night.


	11. Chapter 11

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

_**Discontent**_

The upper level chimes had sounded, heralding the beginning of instructional sessions for initiates and junior padawans, when a prolonged thumping threatened to batter the door straight off its hydraulic pistons.

Obi-Wan waved the abused portal open with a vexed flick of his wrist and presented his ill-mannered visitor with an appropriately censorious mien. "You have the manners of a cheap Gammorrean harlot," he drawled, stepping aside to permit the newcomer entrance.

Feld Spruu spared him a dazzling white smile. "You would know better than I , Obi-Nobi. I bow before superior experience, eh?"

The Twi'Lek knight was clad in a simple set of whites and a heavy traveling cloak, scarred headtail concealed beneath layers of softcloths and bands, artfully wrapped according to Rugosan custom. He stood straight, though his aura held a tell-tale quaver, an echo of recent exhaustion.

"Tea?"

Feld snorted, surveying the austere apartment with manifest disapproval. "You have tea ? This is a hermit's hole, my friend, not proper quarters. "

"I do have a _few_ luxuries. One need not renounce all civility to attain enlightenment."

His visitor idly picked up the topmost holo-volume of a glimmering stack. "'What's this? Leisure reading? Ha! I think 'probation' maybe suits you a little too well, eh?."

Obi-Wan snatched _Commentary on the Fireflower Sutra_ from unworthy hands and placed it neatly atop _Historical Battle of Kua'tar and Other Military Strategic Conundrums,_ straightening the edges of the pile with a nudge of the Force.

Fled shrugged, settling gingerly – _very_ gingerly - upon the room's solitary meditation cushion. "Fierfek," he cursed, lowering his stiff body the last few inches.

His host handed over a steaming bowl. "Master Spruu."

"My thanks," the young Twi"Lek gasped, still grimacing.

Obi-Wan perched upon the sleep mattress' edge. "It is good to see you fighting fit," he remarked dryly, over the rim of his own bowl.

Feld groaned. "Mer'blatzu. Ben –To Li yomu ta quine ama-ama li moule, eh? Sachra mu teela."

His friend's mouth quirked in amusement. "Well, it's better than a kick in the _atuichle."_

The maligned healer's recently discharged patient held thumb and forefinger a bare centimeter apart. _By a narrow margin._

They both chuckled, savoring the rich brew in unison.

"But seriously, my friend – it is good to see you well."

Feld nodded, balancing his empty bowl upon one folded knee and meeting Obi-Wan's gaze quite soberly. "It is good to be here. For which I must thank you. No ," – he held up a hand – " don't object, Obi-Nobi. I am not a fool, eh? If you had not been by my side, I would have returned to the Force.. and Zhoa…." He trailed off, forehead furrowing. "That does not bear thinking upon."

There was a pensive silence.

"How is she, Feld? Truly? What she witnessed in those slave pens… it was not pretty."

The Twi"Lek nodded, grimly. "We are none of us spared. The path is steep." He sighed. "Never before have I questioned the way… a padawan is a strange thing," he ended, lamely.

Obi-Wan's brows lifted. " I did warn you."

But Feld paid no heed to his prematurely cynical outlook. "Spinster's envy. Listen, Obi-Nobi: what we saw in the Rims. It was bad. Things are going to seed out there. Worse than anyone thinks."

"Yes." And with the Rim Patrol dissolved, pending the Senate's pleasure, or funds, there was little hope of forestalling the chaotic unraveling of law and order. Jedi were simply spread too thin, the Republic stretched too far, the boundaries of civilization blurred by distance and overambition.

"It is one thing to tell oneself, _we cannot save everyone. We must pick our battles. _ But it is another thing to look one's student in the face and speak a compromise, a half-truth."

Obi-Wan frowned. "What are you saying?"

The Twi'Lek Jedi sat straighter. "I'm taking Zhoa on an extended meditative retreat. The Council has approved."

A slow shake of the head, suspicion blossoming freely in the Force . "There is no sanctioned action which –"

"Meditative retreat," Feld repeated, levitating the cup back into its owner's hands. "I found a quote from your favorite, Master Seva." A dramatic pause. "A fool may teach what to think, a coward may teach how to survive, a beggar may teach how to _live_, but only a true master can teach how to _die."_

His companion extended a hand, hauling him painfully back to his feet. "I hope Zhoa isn't _that _precocious."

"I'm not at the last phase yet," Feld reassured him.

" I should think not. But even teaching 'how to live' sounds a bit strenuous for a meditative retreat?"

"Moving meditation," Feld gritted out, apologetically clutching at his side. "Ah…. Well, once I'm a bit less crippled, eh? "

"Feld…"

"Don't argue, Obi-Nobi. You don't stand a chance."

"Well _no…_I can't reason with a mynock or a spaceworm, either. I'll admit defeat in the face of catastrophic idiocy."

"Good," Feld quipped. "You're better company that way."

"You do realize the gravity of what you intend?"

His comrade scoffed openly. "Says the man under formal censure for … what was it….? Open defiance of the Council's mandates? "

Obi-Wan crossed his arms, acutely disgruntled. "Fine. Just don't come crying to _me _for rescue again. Oh, and incidentally, if you should decide to attain true masterhood by way of example_,_ I'll follow you into the Force and give you something _worth_ contemplating."

Feld's grin blazed across his face like a shooting star. "Don't wax sentimental, eh? It will shame us both." He clasped the other Knight 's shoulder. "We depart in a day or so."

Ceding the battle with uneasy heart, Obi-Wan made him a grave bow. "…Then may the Force be with you, now and always."

After all, what else was there to say?

* * *

Anakin swung his legs beneath the Archives study carrel table, diligently tracing out the unfamiliar shapes of the aurebesh upon a glowing data-field. Aurek, nern, aurek, krill, isk, nern again. The forms were alien, awkward and sharp edged like so many clumsy knives and tools… but they had a bold, well-defined quality to them as well, a crisp contrast to the oily curves of Huttese writing.

He decided he liked his name better this way. _Ana-kin, Ana-kin-sky-walk-er._ Beside him, Zhoa Pleromata scribbled intently upon her own 'pad, stylus flying over the touch plate in a tight choreography, one of the 'saber drills he had watched the _other_ kids perform earlier today.

_That_ had been amazing, except he had been debarred from participating. They hadn't even allowed him to _hold_ one of the laser swords, even though they were just 'training' versions, not rugged ones like Mister Obi-Wan's that made that _wizard_ sound and could cut through durasteel like banthamilk butter. His brows contracted, the faint afterimage of _nern_ still gracing the interactive field's shimmering expanse.

The Nautolan girl glanced up, sensing his distress. "Need help?" she cheerfully offered.

"No." He thrust out his lower lip. "I like Mister Troon," he prefaced his complaint, cautiously, "but –"

"_Master_ Troon."

Whatever. "But how come he won't let me touch a lightsaber? Not even a practice one? I just wanted to see how it works. I could make some upgrades , maybe. I'm good at that."

Zhoa's dappled headtails slid over her slender shoulders as she tipped her head. "Well…." her opal eyes blinked languidly, the buttressed ceiling reflected upside down in their dark convexity. " The 'saber is the sacred weapon and emblem of our Order. It's not… a _toy."_ An apologetic pause. "It might confuse the younger ones if an outsider was simply allowed to play with a 'saber while they have to _earn_ the right through hard work and study. You see?"

He didn't. Not really. But his attention was preoccupied now with the one word _outsider._ "So what if I'm _ootmian?" _he exploded. "Everybody here is! You're from Glee Whatsit and some of those kids are from _really _choobazzi faraway systems. But they stare at me like I'm some kinda freak show."

His companion smiled sympathetically. "I'm sorry." She set down her own work, leaning forward intently. " But we've most of us never… well, you're different. You… come from a different kind of life. Did you tell them about your mother, the same things you told me?"

"Well, sure." Truculent, Anakin kicked his legs beneath the table in a tight rhythm, _whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh._. They traced savage arcs through the cool air, striking against nothing, a double pendulum swinging in emptiness. Of course he had related tales of his mother, his friends, his life back home on Tatooine. Memory was his only possession, his sole social currency. He had nothing else to exchange with these wide-eyed strangers, these peculiar old-young children who lived in a white sanctuary and obeyed thousands of rules and owned everything and nothing and were all orphans, orphaned demi-gods, every one of them. He clutched at his own arms.

Coruscant was cold. The Temple was cold. He was cold.

"So what if I have a family?" he shouted. His voice rang off the lofty arched ceiling. A murmur of disapproval passed like a cloud of distressed flutter-wings, a susurration felt all around in the air, in the light, in the flickering edges of the stacked holo-books.

"Shhh!" Zhoa admonished him. The green skin between her enormous eyes puckered in thought. "Aren't we strange to you, too?"

"Yeah, but that's different, " Anakin insisted. "I'm normal. I'm _regular._ You all are _weird."_

The young Nautolan affected an insipid, teacherly expression. "That depends on your point of view, doesn't it?" she inquired, a thread of polite disdain running through the words.

Her feelings were hurt. Which annoyed him more profoundly than anything else. How _dare_ she have feelings when he wasn't allowed to _mention_ them? And as for her stupid point of view argument, he wasn't buying it. "Mister Qui-Gon wasn't weird! He _understood_ stuff. And Mister Obi-Wan is weird," - one had to admit- "but he's _wizard _ on the inside. I can tell."

And then it hit him like a ton of sun-baked bricks: he couldn't _tell_ about anyone else here. Back home, on Tatooine, people had depths; you could merely peer into their inner realm and see whether it festered with vice or flourished with a garden of insight or kindness. Here, he was alone among _masks, _ a panoply of minds fortressed round and round with impenetrable walls, their hearts hidden away beneath invisible shields, beneath custom and formality, beneath riddling words and the drape of cloak and hood. His stomach lurched. _Hutts _ were like that too – opaque, unreadable, insusceptible to his peculiar gift of perception.

Zhoa visibly floundered. "Well," she said, blinking rapidly in confusion. For a moment he thought she was going to crumble a little bit, so he could really _see_ her insides – but then she sort of disappeared, her presence curling up within itself like a sand crustacean withdrawing from a predator's prying invasion. " I'm sorry I can't help. Maybe.. maybe Master Obi-Wan could? Since you trust him and not… anyone else." Her mouth formed a firm line, a dark slit punctuating the round innocence of her face, an emphatic mark of displeasure, of disappointment.

Jedi were so _weird._ Anakin stifled a scream of frustration. Why did it have to be so _difficult?_

" I have to go," she added, abruptly. "My master is expecting me. May the Force be with you, Anakin."

Her formal bow somehow impugned his honor - but he did not know what respectively obscure gesture would serve to convey his apology or offense, and so was left without means of reply. Stymied, and hungry because he was always hungry when he was mad, he watched her beat a dignified retreat down the Archives main aisle and out the broad double doors.

"_Poodoo_!" he hissed between gritted teeth.

And _poodoo_ on all the stupid rules too. He bounced to the floor, threw his shoulders back, and went for a ride in the desert. Of course, he had no racer and no desert, so he settled for an unauthorized exploration of his surroundings instead. It came down to the same thing.

When Troon Palo came to fetch him a half-hour later, he was nowhere to be found.


	12. Chapter 12

**Legacy V**

* * *

**Chapter 12**

_**Discovery**_

On Tattooine, space was portioned into disparate realms: the desert floor unfurled in two dimensions, a vast plain of hollowness dotted with rock pylons, scarred by the black hills, pocked and cratered by insignificant settlements, the traces of civilization like some trifling outbreak of pimples or crusty sand-flea bites upon an expressionless face. One could flee into this empty basin without going _anywhere:_ location meant _oasis - _ outside those few clusters of tenacious, foolhardy life there was but undifferentiated abyss, wind and rock and sand rolling and dipping and stretching to the encircling horizon. He who ventured into the desert had but two options: return back to origin, or perish. Like slavery, the desert promised no exit, no real progress.

That was the realm of the sky: blue, celestial blue, burning with promise, with the tantalizing allure of possibility, of a future too lofty to be attained. The sky too was hollow and perfect, curving overhead in a blinding-bright dome marbled by no clouds, marked by no signposts or texture. Inviolable, perfect, it mocked the lowly desert-dwellers from empyrean heights, reminding them that dreams and ambitions, the thousand-thousand twinkling worlds beyond the bounds of their allotted existence were light-years away, inaccessible, ungraspable.

He had lain upon his back amid the sand and wept with longing, more than once. The desert was cruel but the stars above were crueler, the forbidden water-jug set before a chained and dying man.

Only he wasn't chained anymore, nor dying. He was among the stars now, beneath foreign constellations. And space itself had changed, transmorphed into a labyrinth of labyrinths peopled by players in a lurid masquerade. He wandered through the Temple's vaulted halls, its corridors and echoing chambers, mouth agape. Here, space was _full –_ articulated, scribed and carved into a maze of meanings and purposes, every openness closed, every direction shaped and directed, the floor inlaid with symbol, the walls buttressing windows, windows peering out upon groomed gardens, fantastic skylines, sequestered terraces. To move was to move _among-_ every step was progress , every turning a destination. His metaphorical flight into the desert had become a headlong plunge into complexity, a dizzying spiral carrying him up and up, out and out, each step a departure and an arrival, until he stumbled upon a veritable _treasure house_ on the north facing upper level. The magneto-locked doors hissed open at the touch of his thought, the way things sometimes did. He couldn't really explain why that happened, but by the world-wise age of eight and three-quarters, he'd grown accustomed to the phenomenon.

He ducked behind a support pillar when a gleaming droid crew hovered by, then squinted beneath the bright overhead lamps. He had found another hangar bay, one devoted to maintenance and repair, perhaps. There was but one vessel docked in its great expanse, and that one had been partially dissembled, some of the sublight thruster components and a hyperdrive interface neatly laid upon the decks nearby, all the access hatches open and the circuitry laid naked.

And what a ship it was! Obsidian black, the hull sculpted like artisan's ceramic, it seemed to pulse with an ominous life of its own, a heartthrob resounding in Anakin's own veins. _ I too am a stranger here,_ it said. _ A prisoner._

Half-gutted, its innards splayed beneath the impersonal light banks, it seemed to groan for release from bondage, the gleaming plates of its hull protective shields reflecting oily shadows, bending the shapes of the rafters overhead into mesmerizing knots and patterns, red upon deepest black. The ship _was_ a prisoner, and a tormented prisoner at that. Somebody had been diligently ripping it apart, ardent and desirous of its secrets, looking _through_ it just as the Council had looked _through_ him, sought out his depths.

A pang of fierce sympathy swept through his small frame, a sense of solidarity with the eviscerated ship. Though it sat here, and surrounded by a vague corona of malice or anger, his heart went out to it, an impulsive generosity or recklessness prompting him to take one hesitant step forward and then another. The closer he drew, the more clearly the starcraft seemed to _speak_ to him. He shook his head, reason asserting that this was impossible, his conviction edging on insanity. But even as he frowned and gnawed at his lower lip, the soundless siren call pulled him closer, step step step, until he stood upon the threshold of the boarding ramp, looking into the dimly illumined bowels of the alien vessel.

_Help me_, it seemed to say. _Quickly. _Panic clawed at his belly, and his chest tightened.

But he was born to help, wasn't he? To free the enslaved. He took a shuddering breath and plunged into the hold, heart hammering against his ribs.

* * *

The Serenity Garden was an utter mess.

Which was only to be expected; Temple custom permitted the younglings – the _little ones- _ periodically to romp at will over the painstakingly groomed sand, to tumble and stack the polished stones as they pleased, thus wrecking hours or days of meditative concentration in one fell swoop of youthful enthusiasm. Legend or rumor had it that the precedent had been set by old Yoda himself, the original wreaker of mayhem upon the tranquil scene, some six or seven centuries earlier – but as not one living soul in the community was old enough to confirm the tale's truth, the matter was doomed to remain forever clouded in obscurity.

Obi-Wan scowled at the rumpled surface of the sand, the criss-crossing impressions of many small soft-booted feet and the whimsical fortress- circle of rocks at the center. One or two apostate stones stood abandoned upon the garden's edge, lolling crookedly at the margins of the sand basin where they had been forgotten by the revelers. He picked his way across the disorderly scene and perched upon one of these larger outcasts, hands upon knees.

Slow exhalation.

The complacent stones stared back at him, blank-faced. Stagnant in their childish circles, the huddled formations in which they had been abandoned by their last visitors, they appeared so many lost and bedraggled pups - pathetic strays sitting amid a wreck and ruin of better days. Rising, he extended both hands, palms upward, lifting the whole assembly upward, up into the slow-turning vortex of the Force. The rough-hewn shapes floated, bobbed, traced a grave circuit about the perimeter and settled upon its margins, settling in neat ranks without raising the slightest puff of dust. Another sweep of his hand smoothed the marred sands'surface, eradicating hill and vale, leveling the creases and furrows, the churning of tiny footprints.

_Tabula rasa._

Among the stones thus set at attention upon the border was a jagged hunk of obsidian, a long-tenured member of the Garden – perhaps a piece of discarded masonry from some ebony monolith or architectural detail now forgotten. Its shape was irregular, menacing, and dully reflective. – a thing polished to a contemptuous sheen and complacent in its asymmetry. This heavy object he lifted, with the Force, wafting its ungainly form out over the pristine sand and then dropping it unceremoniously into place at the center.

It hit the surface with a muffled thud, keeled precariously to one side and then stood upright upon its more slender end with a nudge or two of gentle assistance. And there it remained, glowering at him across the Garden's quiet expanse.

He unstrapped his boots and stepped inside the perimeter, using one toe to draw a line between himself and this emblematic monstrosity. The stone merely leered at him, its very silence a barbed mockery. And then he knelt to meditate upon the opposite side of his improvised barrier, and stared it down.

For a long while.

Overhead, Coruscant's waning day edged toward night, the fluttering banners of sunset-cloud yielding to flitter-bug processions of lights, air traffic weaving festival ribbons across the purpling skies. Few stars were visible against the city-planet's ambient glow, but they were present in the Force, stern witnesses to all that transpired upon and beneath the teeming megalopolitan crust. The constellations wheeled, the sky cars droned on in endless procession, the Force ebbed and flowed softly among the statue-like forms within the serene enclosure.

Insight quavered like the petals of a lotus about to open… beckoning….

Trembling, upon the cusp of epiphany….

Only to dissolve before the harsh clack of a gimer stick stumping its way down the footpath.

"Ah," Master Yoda remarked, hesitating upon the border of the sand. "Facing anger, hmm?" His gnarled cane rose and traced an unsteady circle in the air, vaguely encompassing the stone, the young Knight opposite, the Garden itself and the aioli grotto adjacent. "Very quaint, yes. Picturesque."

Not bothering to mask his vexation, the victim of this interruption released a grumbling exhalation. "How did you find me, Master?"

The old one wriggled the three clawed digits of one hand, and plopped himself over the edge into the sand, thick toes curling pleasurably among the coarse grains. "Hmmmmmm!" he exclaimed, ears perking in delight. "Hmm!"

Obi-Wan folded his hands and waited, grimacing as his careful work was deliberately wrecked by the frolicsome senior Jedi, who insisted upon cavorting about the garden's confines like any of the toddling younglings who must have been here earlier.

"Hunh!" the ancient master grunted, knocking the enormous obsidian rock over with a casual flick of one claw. It rolled onto its side like a felled tree and lay there, as though embarrassed. "Hummmph!"

White wisps fluttering gaily atop his crenellated skull, the Grand Master finally shimmied into position beside his subordinate, with many a wheeze and mutter of satisfaction. He primly arranged his fraying robes over his bent knees and then turned sly, half-hooded eyes sideways, inviting comment.

Obi-Wan's brows twitched upward of their own accord. "Good evening to you too."

The insouciance earned him a gleeful cackle. "Too serious are you, Obi-Wan."

The subject of this accusation crossed his arms in pique. "I _may_ have been contemplating a grave matter. We don't _all_ use the Serenity Garden as a romper-room."

Another giggle met this edged pronouncement. "Playground, is life. _Play_ is the Force. Younglings know this. Teach them, I do. Remind them, I do. Forgotten it, you have."

He shook his head. "Anger – "

"Anger!" The interruption struck like lightning, causing the young Jedi to flinch, despite himself. "Anger: occurs it does, when play is forgotten. Younglings at play, laugh they do, even when fail in task, even when some hurt they receive in tussle. Playful heart, no room for anger has. But forget the play, let _self_ intrude upon game… then anger: it comes. Tears, accusations, fisticuffs. Take their contests seriously they do, and tangled in anger they are. Learn from them you should."

The implications were insulting. "With due respect , Master –"

Yoda snorted.

"With _due respect,"_Obi-Wan repeated, "The comparison is absurd. What that Sith committed is no _game._ He all but murdered Qui-Gon! In cold blood. In _hate,_ Master. And he would embroil the whole galaxy in the same vengeful fire, if he had the chance. I could _feel_ it in him. He _festers_ with Darkness. This is no game, and no sport – this is …"He scowled, seeking words.

"Change in the Balance," Yoda supplied. "But why angry are you, hmm? Resent what, hmmm? More than you say, I think."

Bristling, the young Jedi clenched his jaw. It was not his place to criticize the Council, especially not after being reprimanded for defiance. It was not his place to demand explanations, or to make decisions. It was not his fight –

But it was. It was _his_ fight. He knew it in his _bones,_ in his blood. The Force was _pounding_ with it.

"Desire to kill the Sith, do you?"

No. Well, not like that. At least, not…

He stood, abruptly. "Forgive me." Though he managed to remain rooted to the spot, despite his impulsive craving to flee the scene, and the shattered meditation, the unwelcome imposition of riddles and challenges upon his tenuous calm.

Yoda merely scrambled to his own feet, knee joints popping and puckered mouth wrinkling in effort. "Like what I say, you do not. Good, is that: bitter is wisdom. Painful. Face your anger, yes. But not like this. Face anger.. then laugh in its face, yes. Walk away, Obi-Wan. Or forever will it dominate your destiny."

"It is my _fight."_ Surely the ancient master knew it as well as he did. The Force was screaming it, chanting it, blazing it across the plenum in burning letters. The Sith and he were a _focal point,_ a terrible compression of fate, a vergence. Wasn't that why he'd returned to Tatooine? To _face_ his enemy?

Yoda peered up at him, reading the thoughts clearly. "Much to learn you still have. Much to unlearn. Hm. A child again you cannot be. But find a child's heart again, you must. Or _heal_ you will not._"_

Thus saying, the tiny troll-like Jedi clambered his way onto the footpath and stumped away, hunched shoulders seeming to bend beneath the weight of eight centuries' authority. The clacking of his stick died away and was replaced by the whisper of aoli leaves in the cool night breeze.

And coveted insight remained elusively furled within the Force, just out of reach. The moment passed; night descended; he turned and retreated into the Temple's immovable fastness, leaving the Serenity Garden in a worse mess than he'd found it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 13**

_**Prodigal**_

"_Missing?"_

Troon Palo was unmoved by the sharp edge of dubiety in his interlocutor's raised voice. He merely continued t o block the passageway, enormous shoulders practically spanning one marble wall to the next, and nodded his head. "You heard me."

Obi-Wan raised his brows. "Well then, thank the Force I'm not on crèche duty at pres-"

"Thank the Force you're here to save the day," the hirsute clanmaster growled. "You found the little rapscallion in the first place; now you haul his _pula_ back where it belongs, Kenobi."

Fingers brushing against his 'saber hilt, the young Knight was sorely tempted to echo Troon's guttural noise of disapproval. _Really. _ "If he's somehow managed to elude everyone else's search, then how in the blazes am _I_ supposed to find him?"

Troon's alarming orange eyes widened in mirth. He delivered a powerful slap to his former charge's shoulder. "'Cause you have a _connection_ with the little blighter. May the Force be with you. Oh, and comm me when you've located him."

Obi-Wan executed an ironic – not resentful, studiously _not_ resentful – bow to the clanmaster's retreating back and pivoted on one bootheel, and strode back along the upper level connecting concourse. Chalk up yet _another_ reason never to take a padawan.

"_I'll _ put you back where you belong, my little friend," he muttered.

* * *

The cockpit was disemboweled - circuits and data matrixes laid in neat rows upon the decks, some of the more esoteric parts labeled and dissected. The navicomp particularly had been reduced to its myriad component parts, each one spread out in a careful pattern upon a magnetically charged tray and marked with plastoid tags. The thoroughness and tidiness of the operation fascinated Anakin; Watto's shop had always been a rambling collection of spilled parts and overflowing bins, battered remnants and unidentified clutter. This was…. clinical, by comparison. Cold. Calculating. _Pointed._

Nimble fingers sorted through the categorically organized parts, turning over this relay, examining that anode, tracing the outline of this cybernetic board or that interface. But where was the…?

Intrigued, his searching hands lighted upon the most unfamiliar object of all – a data crystal of opalescent black, thin as a knife's edge, light as a feather and yet strangely resilient, flint-hard, unyielding. It whispered to him.

It beckoned him, certainly. And if he found himself automatically slotting it into the display mounted in the console, and then tweaking controls and entering commands into the quiescent computer as if he'd been trained in a specialist's academy… well then, that was just another fascinating aspect of this ship. The cybernetics pathways were not linear, nor based any of the standard interactive droid-brain templates he'd studied; yet he spoke the arcane language without effort, as though it had been keyed to his instincts, or he to this task. Field upon field appeared in shimmering crimson lines above the inset projector plate, and then – as a reward for his diligence, a long string of coordinates.

Only they weren't in any recognizable sequence , nor were they written in Huttese or Basic numerals. The script was utterly foreign, twisted sigils and exclamatory marks standing in massed ranks before him, a string of gibberish pulsing with hidden secrets, with the treasure the poor, gutted ship had thus far withheld from its captors.

_Relieve me of my burden,_ it seemed to tell him. _Help me._

Tongue caught between his teeth, nose rumpling in concentration, he set to work.

* * *

Unfortunately, Troon Palo appeared to be correct in his diagnosis: there _was _some sort of pathological connection forged between the boy and himself. Obi-Wan's mouth thinned as realization struck: however or whatever the explanation, there was no way in the all-holy blazes that _he_ would find his thoughts wandering so doggedly toward mechanical trivia. Especially at this time of night, when he should by rights be ensconced in quarters with a bowl of sapir tea and a theoretical treatise on military tactics or else phenomenology.

The subliminal current tugging at his perceptions and desires was itself familiar; how often as padawan had he experienced an insidious undertow of influence from Qui-Gon's side of their Force bond? He would wake at night dreaming of botanical oddities or laughing at some jest not his own, or seem to remember a face he'd never met, a snippet of conversation he'd never heard. Oftentimes Jedi who worked closely together grew quasi-permeable to one another's minds; the Force interpenetrated and bound all things together, psychic as well as material. _Shielding_ had thus over the centuries become a central skill, used far less in the field than here, at home, where so many Sensitives dwelled beneath one roof.

Except, of course, Anakin had never been brought up to _any_ decent civilized habits. Not that the boy should be blamed, but….

"Blast it."

He slapped his palm against the primitive security reader outside the nearest maintenance hangar, and slipped between the ponderous durasteel panels before they were done opening.

"Anakin!" he barked, sharply, coming to a vexed halt in the decks' center. Aircraft and service droids stood ranked in various states of disrepair – or repair, depending on your point of view – along two neat storage racks. Tools and lifting cranes hung pendant from the simple girders. Certainty faded with the echoing of his voice off the high roof panels; intuition had led him thus far only to callously abandon him.

"Kenobi?" an answering voice responded, though its resonant and nearly baritone timbre immediately assured him that it was not Anakin's.

He turned, allowing his painfully narrow focus to encompass more than the narrow margins of his quest; here, tucked away in one of the droid re-charge stations at the dim-lit bay's far end, was Torbb Bakkile. The giantess appeared oddly softened without her customary outlandish field garb. Synthleather tabards and severe black cassock exchanged for standard Temple whites, her ferocious aspect was muted enough to render her almost unfamiliar. And, he noticed, she had shaved off her lavish black topknot. Not that personal vanities bore any significance, naturally.

"What are you doing skulking down here?" he demanded, crossing the deck in her direction.

Torbb waved one gargantuan hand at the battered astro-mech unit currently plugged into the charger station. "Seeing if I can resurrect this old relic. Madame Nu wants to translate some obscure data files to the Dantooine Enclave archives… damned if I'm carrying a hover-palette of memory crystals halfway across the galaxy."

Obi-Wan perched upon a deactivated gonk droid's side. "Dantooine? Business or pleasure?"

His taciturn acquaintance merely shrugged her broad shoulders. "Leave of absence," she grunted.

"Exile," he teasingly corrected.

Torrb deigned make no reply, confirming his suspicion that her extended visit to the Temple's sister community was enforced, probably a Council mandate pursuant to her unsanctioned pursuit and execution of Uticus the pirate overlord. "What are you doing skulking about down here?" she replied, pointedly changing topics. "Looking for your stray akk pup, by the sound of it."

"He's not mine."

"Well, he's a scrawny pathetic little thing, anyhow," the huge Knight chuffed. "You two make a well-matched pair." Her dark brows furrowed in consternation as she checked the aged droid's power banks. "..Vape it, he won't hold a charge. Why's that?"

Obi-Wan stood. "Because droids are for _droids."_ He reached out and struck the obstreperous old mech unit a blow to its scuffed dome. A surge of lights flashed down its interface panel, and the head spun. The power station bleeped a confirmation.

"Hells' moons, Kenobi!" Torbb exclaimed.

Grinning impishly, her friend held up a fist. "Spare the rod and spoil the droid."

"Hm. I'll collar your stray if he shows his snub nose down here."

"Thank you. May the Force be with you."

* * *

Master Huyang did not favor him with a warm welcome.

"Kenobi!" the elderly droid artisan hiccupped, upon recognizing his unlikely nocturnal visitor. "Not here to make _more_ adjustments_,_ I hope? There is a kind of imbalance in perpetual tinkering, especially with the sacred emblem of –"

"I'm looking for a missing youngling," Obi-Wan cut across the workshop's fastidious custodian. "Human, blond, round face, yea high." He held a hand out at midriff-level, peering in disappointment at the empty chamber. Bins of stacked tools and components stood in neat rows upon the capacious tables, but there was nary a curious trespasser to be seen.

"No," Huyang sniffed. "Why you suppose he might be _here,_of all places…. This is a sanctuary of contemplative _artistry, _not a play park!"

"Do tell." A brief probe of the Force in Huyang's hushed environs confirmed that neither was anyone hiding, unseen, beneath a countertop or supply crate. "…He has a penchant for tinkering."

The droid snorted, if that were possible, and wiggled dismissive mechanical digits at the intruder. "Try the hangar bays, if you wlll. The very notion is _insulting."_

A terse bow served to end the fruitless interview; Obi-Wan hurried back up the stairs to the third level main connecting arcade, grinding his teeth in frustration. He had already tried all the maintenance bays and the vehicle pools, the recycling center and the droid repair facilities, the communication center and even the interior systems control room, where the Temple's labyrinthine air vents, water cycling, and power generator hubs were located, all to no avail.

He'd exhausted every possibility.

A stray thought; he paused between the sixteenth and seventeenth steps, boot poised in midair. There _was_ one other place…. But how in the blazes would Anakin have found it, or gained access? Then again, the boy had somehow managed to elude _Qui-Gon's _ vigilance on Tatooine. He was…. exceptional in that regard.

Perhaps it was worth a try.

He wheeled round, leapt to the bottom of the flight, and made off in the opposite direction, a foxill in pursuit of intuition's fleeting tail.

* * *

The restricted hangar bay was not marked as such; a pair of unadorned panels separated it from an obscure side passage off the little-used south-facing eighth level mezzanine. Obi-Wan hlated before these forebodingly blank portals and collected his thoughts. No standard lock plate or handprint reader was provided, only a voice-activated passkey would open these gates.

He almost dismissed his suspicions out of hand; surely the boy would _never _have been able to bypass the security system?

But then again, both Qui-Gon and Dooku had taught him that the notion of "never" was, at best, a pretty illusion. Rocking back on his heels, he cleared his throat, prompting the synthesized computer voice to ask him for the password.

Delicate operation. Reserved exclusively for the Shadows' use and accessible only to their senior members and a few Councilors, the doors would most likely have been keyed and sealed by Master Dooku himself. Which worked to his advantage, from a certain point of view.

"Rook to katarn four," he drawled. The revered Sentinel's preferred opening move in dejarik was an esoteric tidbit of knowledge – but fortunately one quite familiar to his favorite opponent.

The blast-shielded doors slid upon silent pistons, demurely yielding to his persuasive powers. Inside, the bay was dimly lit by running lights; upon the decks, like a knot of shadow mysteriously coalesced into glimmering solidity, sat a _ship._ Black, its hull like the sheened carapace of a firebeetle, its innards strewn upon the deck plates in a wide radius about its curved landing prongs, the thing radiated menace.

He stopped in his tracks, gagging on the stench of Darkness. This must be the Sith warrior's conveyance; a chariot fit for its twisted pilot. Someone had been hard at work dissecting its components, possibly seeking some clue to the Zabrak's point of origin; in fact, _someone_ was still hard at work within the ship's bowels.

And that _someone_ was not so difficult to sense or locate at such proximity.

Bracing himself, he jogged up the open boarding ramp and ducked into the vessel's hold with a pronounced shudder. Economically proportioned, the interior cargo bay opened immediately onto a spare aft cabin and then the cockpit, a bulbous space outfitted with exotic console and control panels.

And a Kowakian monkey lixard mucking about with the dissembled navcomp array.

"Anakin!" he barked, far more acerbically than he had intended.

Startled out of deep concentration, the child wheeled round, blue eyes fevered with curiosity and a subtle defensive fire. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Mister Obi-Wan sir! I didn't expect to see you here." He fidgeted, scuffing one toe against the deck and tightly folding both hands into his lap.

The young Jedi breathed out his initial explosion of pique, and gazed around in bewilderment. "What in the name of - _just what_ do you think you are doing here?" he demanded. "Master Palo is very concerned for your well being."

But Anakin only shrugged. "I can take care of myself," he asserted, with the barest hint of apology. "I just.. had to get out. To think about stuff, and… I don't know."

Obi-Wan drew a hand over his eyes. He was _not_ going to waste precious hours he might otherwise spend in sleep in petty altercation with a youngling. "Well, consider your thinking session adjourned. Let's go. I'm escorting you back to the clan dormitory. Now."

The boy's mouth twisted ruefully to one side. "Am I in trouble?" he muttered. A thin edge of trepidation betrayed his inner doubt; accustomed only to a mother's gentle reprimand or the harsh reprisals of a slave-owner's whip, he had _no notion_ what the parameters of true discipline might be.

Obi-Wan decided to let him stew in worry for a bit. And it was undeniably satisfying to take the miscreant by the scruff and march him straight down the ramp and out the doors, feigning deafness to the squeaks of consternation this inspired. "It's a mercy you are a guest and not an inducted member of this Order; Troon would have your _hide_ for running away."

"Can't you explain to him anyway ?"Anakin inquired hopefully , jogging along at the awkward pace dictated by his captor's aggravated stride.

"What? And play accomplice to perfidy?"

"Please, Master Obi-Wan!" the boy pleaded.

And though the supplication went deliberately unheeded, the Force shifted imperceptibly, subtly, as delicate an adjustment of balance as that between one syllable and another, one reality and its alternate.

They continued down the hall, the echo of syncopated footfalls and the skirl of dark cloak following in their wake.


	14. Chapter 14

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 14**

_**Succession**_

Less than halfway to the clan dormitories, it became obvious that returning Anakin to Troon Palo's care was an entirely untenable idea: the boy's pleading had as quickly melted into sullen reticence - welcome enough alternative to his protestations of innocence – and from thence into barely contained anger, which soon enough morphed into its counterpart, self-pity, and from thence into unrestrained sorrow. Which was accompanied by copious if manfully silent tears.

Loneliness positively _emanated_ from the Tatooinian prodigy in great waves, neither shielded nor moderated by any intrusive habit of _reason._ Obi-Wan came to a dead halt, bringing his captive up short beside him.

"I miss my _home!"_ Anakin cried out, with a vehemence that surely ought to have shaken the bronzium sentinel statues out of their perpetual torpor. "I miss _Mom."_

The young Knight thrust both hands in to his cloak's wide sleeves, making a swift and expert tactical assessment of the situation. It would be _ruinous_ to suggest that such raw, unadulterated emotion be delivered like an explosive bomb package to the initiates' sheltered enclave. The younglings – sensitive to a fault, readily thrown into psychic dissonance by the ills of their comrades, by the hard-edged mental projections of others in the Temple - would be set into acute disarray by Anakin's mere presence in this state of mind. Troon would be kept awake all night tending to evil dreams and inexplicable terrors, and his small charges would only be further alienated from the strange boy so suddenly thrown in among them.

On the other hand, he hadn't the heart to betray any sentient being, howsoever pathetic or vexatious, into the healers' care.

_Blast it._ On a long exhalation, he addressed his sniveling companion again. "It's late. I think perhaps you should simply rest in my quarters."

The boy dashed one small hand across his face and sniffled. "Okay," he concurred, mood shifting yet again, a mercuric scudding of clouds across stormy inner skies. "I'm tired," he added, as though by way of explanation.

"Come along." It was more straightforward to issue orders than to attempt comprehension, and hadn't Qui-Gon himself always espoused the 'direct approach'? Anakin Skywalker's whiplash temperament undoubtedly merited inclusion in the long list of subjects which he, Obi-Wan, was so lamentably inclined to "overthink."

Yes, that was it. A lift tube, two concourse intersections, an archway and a narrower passage brought them to his humble new abode. A terse wave of one hand opened the door to them, and they spilled over the dimly lit threshold in disorderly unison.

"Wow," Anakin remarked, gazing round at the painfully ascetical interior. "So… this is your home?"

An unexpected defensiveness tightened the young Jedi's jaw; he released his sudden pique into the Force. "Temporarily, anyway."

"Oh…. Uh, it's nice."

The insincere compliment brought a small smile to its recipient's lips. "There's the fresher, if you need to clean up…. And make yourself at home." He gestured to the low-set sleep couch and watched as the boy promptly kicked off his soft boots and rolled himself in the single thermal blanket with a spontaneous ease suggesting ownership, or possibly an exhaustion too advanced to leave room for etiquette.

"I'm _choobazzi _tired," the lump of bedclothes and sandy hair declared, in a pronounced slur.

In the next instant, he was asleep, and lightly snoring.

Obi-Wan raised his brows, shook his head, and beat a strategic retreat.

* * *

Containment wasn't a solution, per se, but it bought him a few more hours' peace in which to indulge his habit of overthinking.

It was Bant Eerin to whom the onerous duty of the night shift had fallen.

"Obi!" the Mon Cal assistant healer exclaimed when he presented himself in the hushed reception area. "Stars' end… it's nearly third chime. What are you doing here?"

He squared his shoulders for battle. "I've come to see Qui-Gon."

Bant would not be his dearest friend if she lacked for obstinacy or unyielding devotion to principle; though her round eyes blinked a soft and glossy apology, her posture stiffened to match his own. "You know visitors aren't permitted at this hour. "

"But you can make an exception for me," he shot off, flippantly passing one hand on front of her face in the gesture of compulsion.

Bant, naturally, had been immune to such underhanded Force influence since they were twelve years old. She scowled as he deftly slipped past and headed down the corridor on her left. "Obi-Wan Kenobi!" she barked after him, in a stage whisper calibrated to convey authoritative displeasure while not disturbing the ward's resting patents. "You are _not_ visiting anybody at this Sithly time of night!"

He glanced over one shoulder; Bant was standing arms akimbo at the passage's far end. "Then I'm not violating any regulations, am I?" His sunniest grin, replete with dimples, accented the winning strike.

Bant growled deep in her throat but did not pursue him, so he counted it a ready victory and slipped inside the tiny chamber without further ado.

* * *

"I stowed the rascal in my quarters. The new ones, I mean."

Qui-Gon was the barest spark of light within the Force, a vital glimmer like the afterimage of a star seen in passing, like the ephemeral glint of sunlight on water – nothing more. And yet, it was _something - _ and the Jedi master was in death or its simalcrum as patient a listener as ever.

"He won't ever fit in here at the Temple, Master. I don't know what you were thinking. He's like that blasted kinetoflora you adopted all those years ago… when we did that stint with the Agri-Corps. The one with tentacles, and _teeth._ It never adapted to domestic life; it should never have been transplanted to a pot. "

The monitors blipped a steady dirge, its bland monotony a gentle encouragement to unburden himself.

"And the Council think I've gone round the bend , not unlike my revered mentor. I'm fairly certain they've attributed the purported _vergence_ on Tatooine to nervous hy steria. Or worse. Else why would I be effectively grounded on the flimsy pretext of 'recuperative leave'?"

Waxen and grave, Qui-Gon neither denied the charges nor lightened the mood with some subtle quip.

"The worst bit is, I find myself thinking they're complacent and short-sighted. And …dishonest."

The sky did not come crashing down in reaction to this last barely-voiced indictment, nor did the stars and planets quit their orbits. He swallowed and shook his head, laughing inwardly at his own haf-instinctual expectation of retribution for uttered blasphemy.

"They've allowed Dooku to keep a _Sith_ in his infernal dungeon."

There. It was out, and once the levees had been broken, there was no stemming the deluge.

"He's locked away, going slowly mad in that thanatosine torture chamber. And we call ourselves compassionate. They've his ship as well… and whatever secrets it contains. Master Dooku would dissect his prisoner as readily as they've taken the ship to bits, if he were able. Deception and coercion are not the Jedi way, Master. And yet we now have Darkness chained like a pet rancor under the Temple. What does that mean?"

But that wasn't the end of it.

"Master Windu says I must face my anger. How can one face what exists in every direction? And Master Yoda exhorts us all to be more playful… " He ran tense fingers through a disheveled mane. "Something about losing a child's heart."

As though such a thing could _ever_ be regained, innocence restored, hope vindicated, that bright and playful fire rekindled.

"The galaxy's going to hell, Master." It truly was; he had a _very bad feeling_ about it. "And you've managed to step out at just the crucial moment. Very cunning. Don't tell me you've earned your early retirement by training three padawans. I think you just want to smile down on the rest of us from the netherworld. Smugness does _not_ become you, Master."

Nor did _death,_ really, come to think of it.

Even though _there is no death._

He let his face drop into his hands, and surrendered the effort of sustaining this tedious one-sided conversation. Had Qui-Gon been present in more than body, he surely would have exhorted his former student to stop talking and over-thinking the matter, anyhow. He would have reminded him that there is no "going to", only the present moment and the unfettered spontaneity of the Living Force. He would have somehow spurned both Yoda and Mace's advice while subtly agreeing with the essential content of both their admonitions. And he would certainly have been outraged by the news of a Sith prisoner harbored beneath the Temple's modern foundation level.

And then he would have trumped every folly and every outrage by undertaking some mischief of his own, flying in the face of convention, expectation, and decency. Something _blunt_ and _pointed,_ some obstinate repartee to fate and the Council at once, a gesture and ultimatum which he would back with every ounce of his considerable obstinacy.

Halfway between a chuckle and inexplicable tears, the young Jedi sensed a presence directly behind him and twisted round abruptly to deter the intruder.

" _I _ belong here," Ben To Li snipped, crossing both arms over his chest and matching the visitor's scowl with a glare of his own. "Unlike you, Kenobi. So wipe that frown off your face."

The old healer was comically attired in long night shift, full robe, and bare feet. Obi-Wan smirked.

A bony finger was thrust beneath his nose. "I've seen you in _far_ more compromised conditions," Ben To tartly reminded his companion. "Now kindly honor this ward's regulations and stop disturbing my patients."

"I'm _hardly_ disturbing anyone," Obi-Wan grumbled.

The senior healer's mien softened, fractionally. "Except _me._ I get precious little sleep as it is without you moping about in the middle of the night. Your shields are a disgrace for someone technically qualified as a Shadow."

"I am _not_ – "

"You're a pest," Be To cut him off. "Always have been, always will be. You can demonstrate your penitence by making me tea. Go. Scoot."

* * *

The silpa first-leaf brew was exquisite, its sweet fragrance dulling the pervasive stink of bacta that clung about the healers' halls. Obi-Wan inhaled deeply, letting the familiar scent soothe frayed nerves and sort tumbling thoughts into more orderly cadence.

Ben To's thin face bore deeper lines than it used to; the older Jedi's pointed beard was shot through with streaks of purest white.

"We're none of us growing younger," the healer pointed out. "In a handful of years perhaps I'll retire to Ord Cantos and leave the burden of this calling to Vokara."

"Perish the thought." Ben To's heir apparent was a Twi"Lek woman of legendary genius and ferocity; abandoning the Order's ill and wounded to her tender mercy would surely constitute a violation of the pan-galactic humanitarian Gevros Conventions.

"My _point,"_ Ben To continued, ignoring the implied libel against his protégé, "Is that every one of us must leave a legacy behind, appoint one to carry on our work into the next generation, our vocation and vital fire. There were a great number of years during which I thought Qui-Gon would never do so, and that his light would be extinguished from the galaxy. "

They drank in silence.

"Fortunately, he _did_ at last bequeath to the order and to us all a worthy successor. Our lives are _complete_ when we have seen our last student take his rightful place in the service of Light."

Obi-Wan set his bowl down.

"I understand," he said, quietly.

Ben To drained his own cup, swirling the soggy dregs contemplatively. "You are not meant to grieve Master Jinn. You are meant, from the perspective of destiny , to succeed him. To play his role. To _be_ him."

"I will never be as great a Jedi, Master."

"Greatness is made. And making requires _doing,_ not brooding. It is time."

The younger man glanced up sharply, intuition supplying the unspoken truth. "The stasis is decaying, isn't it? The vitals blocker won't last much longer."

Grimacing, the healer nodded. "When it does, I will do all I am able. But it is in the hands of the Force. As are you – if you would but remember it."


	15. Chapter 15

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 15**

_**Standoff**_

"Rook to katarn four," Dooku announced, grey eyes slitted and watchful as the computerized dejarik set played out his command in glinting blue phosphorescence.

Obi-Wan rotated the holographically projected board with a wave of one hand and rubbed fingers against his bristled chin. It was astounding how _many_ diverse tactical approaches Dooku could predicate upon that one, always unvarying opening move – just as a Makashi duel always began with the same bare and unadorned salute but unfurled into a myriad of combative possibilities. The master did not require variety, for his constant was _perfection._

Still, perfection had been known to stumble once or twice upon the unexpected. Obi-Wan had been victorious at this contest a handful of significant times, each one of them a burning brand on the Sentinel's smooth composure. Old age had the advantage of experience and treachery, but youth did occasionally produce a marvel of its own.

"Hm." He edged a piece into play, watching the predatory creature's transparent effigy shimmer in the cool,'cycled air.

"Aggressive," Dooku commented, neutrally. "Allow me to refill your glass."

"Thank you." The senior Jedi had exhumed quite a few bottles from his "private cellar" of late, and had been more than generous in sharing of the bounty. This particular specimen was a celebrated Serrenoan vintage smuggled in by the Sentinel's redoubtable restaurateur cousin, probably at a staggering black market price.

"Excellence often thrives best outside the constricting parameters of convention," the older man remarked, swirling crimson liquid in his goblet.

A tiny smirk. "Said the wayward padawan."

Dooku's thin lips curved upward at the corners. "_A fool may play with pearls, but their value is not thereby diminished._ I believe you could cite examples from your own acquaintance."

"Oh?" the young Knight watched his opponent's next – conservative – move closely. So it was to be a game of attrition, then. He rotated the board again.

"Case in point: the Derrida brothers."

Obi-Wan paused in mid-motion, meeting the silver-haired Jedi's gaze evenly. "I was not aware they merited your interest, Master." Certainly he had never spoken of the rambunctious Phindians and their dubiously legitimate business enterprises in front of his former mentor.

"I have had occasion to peruse the Archives' mission report database of late," Dooku supplied. "Expert cryptographers are hard to come by in this unimaginative age. Too much dependence on droids and algorithms."

Obi-Wan opted for a second aggressive deployment of resources; not his usual style, but he had to admit to an undeniable thrill of enthusiasm for the risky maneuver. The wine-induced glow in his chest and belly enhanced the giddy pleasure_. "_ Paxxi and Guerra are talented, indeed."

His companion scowled over the board, _tsking _ deep in his throat over the reckless course of action unfolding on the piebald surface. "Juvenile," he grunted.

The wine was superior, and the game intriguing. Obi-Wan leaned back in his chair, affecting the insolent sprawl he knew would most irritate Dooku's patrician sensibilities. "They are puerile and arrogant by turns, I will admit. But had I invented a device capable of breaking the firewalls on nearly any existing security coder, I suppose I might be, too. "

The Sentinel cocked a severe brow in his direction. "I should be tempted to _subcontract_ their services were their character more reliable," he said, mouth twisting in dissatisfaction. His katarn retreated several spaces.

Obi-Wan raised his brows inquisitively, waiting for elaboration.

"The Sith warrior we apprehended over Tattooine is more cunning than I initially surmised," Dooku admitted. "The navcomp interface from his vessel is encrypted in a manner neither I nor the Temple's best experts have encountered before. Not even Ban-Yaro was able to decipher it."

"You want the coordinates of his last jump point."

"It is reasonable to suppose they represent either a rendezvous or base of operations. A location would be _vital_ to tracking down his _superior. _ And I assure you, _that_ is the true enemy. What you discovered is but a finely-crafted _tool._ I want the artisan himself."

"Or herself." The leering visage of Mother Talsin and her nightsisters presented itself to imagination, for starters.

But Dooku waved a dismissive hand. "Pshaw. The Sorority is a coven of mawkish dilettantes. I speak of a _power_ the like of which the galaxy has not seen in a millennium. It must be rooted out before it manages to _flourish_ once again."

"The Order-"

"-is effete," Dooku snapped, eyes glinting with a dangerous light. "You may be too young – or idealistic – to see it, but this is an age of heroes; by the prowess and courage of the few shall the Republic – or that which it represents – stand or fall. Institutions grow and decay with the times that give birth to them. It is personal _excellence_ alone that remains free from the tyranny of cyclical time."

The younger Jedi set his empty glass aside, the game forgotten. "Master, you seem to imply that the Order is impotent to address this threat."

Dooku crossed one leg over the opposite knee, flicking lint from immaculate trousers. "A chain is only as weak as its strongest link, so long as that _link_ has the courage and initiative to _act_ when crisis so demands. I _need_ the coordinates of that vessel's last reversion ; the fate of billions may depend upon it."

Obi-Wan frowned. "I am not certain that the Phindians could help… surely if the cipher eludes our own best minds, it is rooted in some Dark technique or craft? " He hesitated. "It might be wiser to seek the counsel of Mother Talsin, much as I am loath to suggest it."

The Sentinel drained his cup and drummed elegant fingers against his chair's molded armrest. "A revolting notion," he declared, lip curling.

The younger man dipped his head, yielding the point. Dooku's tenuous alliance – if such it could be called – with the matriarch of Dathomir was not something which sat well with his conscience or his instincts. Better not to stir the mud in _that_ village pond, since it reeked so strongly of treason and black magic.

"Your move, my young friend."

The dejarik board was a simpler matter to contemplate than this latest conundrum; they played the next few turns in silence.

Then, "Your refugee from Tatooine fascinates me."

Obi-Wan looked up, warily. "Anakin? Has the Council reached a decision?"

Dooku's katarn swiftly and decisively subdued one of his outlying pawns. "The child is far too old to be trained, according to custom, though he harbors a disturbingly powerful potential. The question currently under consideration is that of _containment."_

Ice cascaded down the young Knight's back. "Containment?" he repeated, clamping down on irrational and unfounded outrage. "They mean to …what? Imprison him? Keep him here indefinitely?"

"Perhaps find a way to _suppress_ those latent and dangerous talents," the Shadow coolly replied, nudging his katarn to further brutality. "For his own protection, for the protection of others."

The floor seemed to shift like the deck of a reverting hyperspace vessel. Obi-Wan shook his head. "I cannot believe that Master Yoda, or even Master Windu, would – "

"You have _much_ to learn," Dooku interrupted. A raised hand stemmed further protest. "_Debate_ is not determination. It is a point of hypothetical discussion. However… you must admit the boy is dangerous."

It was true. But he was also a …._boy._

"Surely someone could….sponsor him? Teach him to shield, at the least? To understand his birthright? It is too late to leave him in obscurity."

Dooku arched one ironic brow at him. "I have little doubt that Qui-Gon, were he able, would volunteer for the task."

A glum nod. Qui-Gon had ever been the champion of forthright solutions, of compassion and sanity, when tradition seemed too distant or cold. But that was a moot point now.

"There is no need to wax morose," Dooku chided his pensive companion. "I have half a mind to adopt the boy's cause myself. In the right hands, he could be a blade of Light – a blade of blades, even. The Chosen One."

Thunder swelled on invisible horizons, heralded by a shuddering gale within the Force's churning nexus. Breath seemed to leave the younger man's body as the words sank in. "….As you say, Master," he choked out, every nerve screaming in raw, inchoate warning.

"Excellent," Dooku murmured, returning his attention to the game, which he stood in a fair way of winning.

* * *

"Hello there."

Siri Tachi's sunny greeting riveted him to the spot upon the doorstep, as his mind scrambled to integrate incongruous and overwhelming sensory data.

Quarters. Bed. Anakin Skywalker. Clutter on floor, table, every surface. Empty refectory dining tray. Scent of fava bean stew. Siri Tachi. In his quarters. On his bed. _In his space._ Fully engaged with Anakin, who was gawking at her with the hungry look of a lost kitling which has battened onto a surrogate dam.

Also, the room was _hot._ Anakin must have been tinkering with the therm regulator.

"Mister Obi-Wan sir!" the culprit piped up. "I've been telling Miss Siri-"

"Padawan Tachi," he corrected, automatically, crossing the threshold in a daze and scowling at the uncivilized condition of his _private quarters._

"-All about Tatooine and the slaves and stuff and how Gardula bought me and Mom and the podrace and Watto and _everything!"_

"It's a thrilling tale," he remarked, dryly, punching a terse command in to the temperature regulation controls. For _Force's _ sake….

Siri meanwhile had found her feet and made him the requisite bow of respect. "I apologize for the intrusion," she said, in a perfectly level and insincere diplomatic tone.

The 'cycler ground back in to action, spilling a stream of cooler air into the suffocatingly warm chamber.

"Anakin…." Obi-Wan gestured vexedly at the tech mess covering every centimeter of available space. "Clean this up." Beat. "Please." He wasn't the boy's _master,_ after all. Thankfully.

The child scrunched his nose. "Awww…. I'm almost done." The protest died away upon one glance upward at the young knight's face. "Oh, um…. Okay. But why?"

"Because we are going to meditate."

Anakin gaped. "Me?" he squeaked.

"Yes." Anything for ten minutes' peace. "Now."

The boy scurried to tidy up the detritus of his latest excursion in to mechanical irresponsibility, allowing an opportunity for escape. The corridor outside was far less stifling, at least until Siri opted to follow him out the door.

"Feel free to make yourself at home," he groused, backing up into the wall.

Siri crossed her arms in an eerie mimicry of his own defensive posture. "Somebody has to look after that poor creature."

"Poor creature?" Obi-Wan's brows crept towards his hairline. "Public menace would be more apropos."

"He's a _former slave,_ Kenobi. Have a little compassion."

The sharp and impatient rejoinder hurt. He feigned cavalier indifference. "Well, far be it from me to interfere with your nursemaiding proclivities."

Siri's flush was a fair complement to her natural beauty; appreciation of the same was merely a proper aesthetical response. "Oh, I _forgot,"_ she murmured, dangerously. "You only save the day; the fallout is other people's problem."

The arm's- width between them seemed abruptly to expand into an abyss of misunderstanding. "I don't – "

"Of course you don't!" she snapped, closing the distance further and yet remaining infinitely aloof. "You rescue Zhoa and then you ship her home; you rescue Garen and then you go on your merry way, some obscure quest of your own, you rescue _Anakin_ and then you leave him in the care of total strangers, you rescue Master Jinn and you-"

"_Don't."_

Infuriatingly, Siri could infallibly infuriate him. _Nobody_ spoke to him in such a manner. Certainly not a _padawan_ whom he technically- officially – in truth and fact –outranked. He glared down at her, wrestling down a serrated, whiplash retort of his own. _Peace, peace, peace -_

Footsteps sounded distantly at the far end of the corridor; someone was approaching from the lift tube.

Seeming to abruptly recall her _proper place,_ Siri dipped her head. "Forgive my disrespect, " she muttered, the tips of her ears deepening to a bright crimson, her chest rising and falling in pronounced rhythm. And then she pivoted on one heel and was gone, striding down the hall in a streak of cream and brown, golden hair coming uncoiled from its knot behind her head.

Anakin stuck his tousled head out the door. "IS everything okay? Cause I'm like waiting to meditate and stuff, like you said."

Obi-Wan unclenched his jaw, forced a semblance of calm, and embraced the present moment. "Everything is fine. And yes, let's begin. I want you to listen, and do as I do."

The door slid shut behind them with a whisper of pistons.


	16. Chapter 16

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 16**

_**Introspection**_

Meditation, if you were to solicit Anakin's opinion on the matter, was completely _freaky._

He sat on the low bleachers surrounding the upper level practice salle's wide expanse and kicked his feet a little. The Temple-issued datapad drooping idly between his fingers displayed a scrolling band of symbols and numbers, the encrypted data copied – easily enough, once he'd figured out how – from the strange black ship's navcomp memory crystals. Mister Obi-Wan had hustled him out of the forbidden hangar bay pretty _choobazzi_ fast, but not before he'd managed to make a copy of the puzzle for his own private amusement. It was coming in handy as a distraction now, when he didn't want to think about bigger, scarier stuff like the "Force" and interconnectedness and personal destiny.

Also, watching Mister Obi-Wan perform drills with his _wizard_ laser sword was pretty good distraction too. There was this remote sphere up in the corner trying to zap him with some kinda stun bolt, all fuzzy yellow and making a grating sound as each was discharged – and the young Jedi was just sorta casually knocking them outta midair with the blade of his 'saber, like not even _trying_ or anything, which was even more totally rugged because he was blindfolded too. It was the type of display one would expect to attract eager spectators at a street carnival, an astounding feat of skill… except Anakin could read in his new friend's posture a certain absent-mindedness in the midst of intense concentration, as though this were but the outward and habitual anchor for some deep inward searching.

He understood that just fine. Wasn't that why he built cybernetics projects and fixed things when he needed to think? With most his brain unremittingly occupied by the problem at hand, that small still voice inside him was free to _really_ work things out, without the encroaching presence of anxiety, skittering thoughts, or emotions. When asked earlier, Mister Obi-Wan had said he started 'saber training at the age of _four…_ which was about the same time Anakin had constructed his first simple repulsor-drive engine. That's how it was with stuff you'd been doing all your life: it got to be a part of you, like breathing and eating and sleeping.

The notion that _meditation_ should occupy this same echelon of private and personal ubiquity was just plain disturbing.

Not that it was difficult or anything. At first, Anakin had suffered some confusion, since Mister Obi-Wan liked to use a lot of big words and use them with punishing zeal, until their edges were all dented and bent. But once they'd got down to _practicing,_ to actually _trying_ it together, it had proved a simple enough matter. Basically, there were two ways of looking at the universe: you could either see a bunch of different unrelated individuals, some of which killed and enslaved other ones – or you could see one vast _thing,_ in which the parts were like voices in a chorus or facets of a jewel. Which sorta raised the question why this one beautiful, unified thing kept enslaving and killing itself all over the place. That's where Mister Obi-Wan had gone all philosophical again with his "Dark Side" lecture and Anakin had blanked out a little. So the other way of looking at it was like this: you could see space as an empty void filled with billions of points of light called stars, or you could see space as a pulsating field of electromagnetic radiation emanating in one continual efflux from billions of wellsprings called stars. That's when Anakin's head had begun to ache. And they'd quit the theoretical exploration altogether.

In _meditation,_ essentially, you gave up on being an isolated individual for just a second or two – or an _hour,_ according to Mister Obi-Wan –and you allowed your mind to experience existence in the other way, as a whole or something. As far as Anakin could make out, according to the Jedi _death_ was pretty much the same thing but on a more permanent basis; when posed with this question, Mister Obi-Wan had praised Anakin for his insight in one breath and then frowned upon the next logical conclusion, which was that it was therefore possible to meditate one's self to death, and shouldn't that be incentive to extreme caution?

"I thought you excelled at potentially fatal, unregulated sports?" the young knight had said, with one eyebrow arched up in a sarcastic curve.

So then they'd actually _tried _ it, together, heedless of the inherent peril, and it the experience had proved both vertiginous and overwhelming. It was like looking in a mirror, and then falling _in,_ and then realizing that you had plummeted into somebody else's reflection too, only it wasn't just a reflection it was the real thing and the you on the other side looking in was the refracted image… well, anyway, it was hard to explain. But for a split second they had been inside each other's thoughts, or maybe memories, at least a little bit:

Anakin had been himself and not himself, watching a sand storm batter against his hovel's single transparisteel skylight, watching endless rain cavort along the smooth curve of a high arboretum dome – and he had been poking curiously at a dead grog in the gutters of Mos Espa, prodding dubiously at some bizarre _tentacle_ plant on a snow-spattered slope – and he was flying his racing pod, flying an aircar, poring over a dissembled and antique hyperdrive, poring over an advanced astronavigation manual – or else he was eating dried yorba-rinds, because there was nothing else to eat, vile and bitter ration pellets because there was nothing else to eat, and he was curling up to sleep in an exhausted ball and he was exulting in blue skies, and he was glorying in the fruits of his own painstaking handiwork and he was laughing at a friend's joke – and later or again, he was melting with shame, loss or failure or frustration precipitating like icy hail, like dammed and burning tears, while a hand stroked his back and a voice intoned soothing wisdom, either Shmi 's or Mister Qui-Gon's, it was impossible to say which.

There were also small white petals, the delicate flotsam of some wind-wrought harvest, floating upon a warm breeze. They were scented of purest longing, and his head spun with it, not understanding and yet yearning to understand, thirsting for an unnamed mystery just beyond his ken. There was sunlight, harsh and gentle; starlight, distant and beautiful; dusk, portentous and comforting; candlelight, ancient and familiar.

All this in a single heartbeat, or one endless indrawn breath, a duration unfettered by mere time – and then, discordant and painful, the intrusion. The black and red tattooed warrior loomed before his inner eye, leering at him, at them, at the panoply of place and recollection. The dark sigils upon his face twisted round , a thorn-hedge of malice, a chorus of fell vices chanting chanting drawing tighter, ever inward until they were all three bound and shackled within the suffocating confines of this smoky, whirling calligraphy, a black tornado's eye lit by hollow sulphuric lanterns. Within that howling prison-pit, self and other and enemy blurred into one bold stroke of destiny, identities smeared and bleeding, a vast conflict erupting among them like forked lightning, like one of the devastating electrical storms laying waste to the Dune Sea. The peripheral shadows broke free, reached clawing tendrils inward, clutching at Anakin, pulling at him pulling him to pieces, claiming him – and he screamed, and Mister Obi-Wan was yelling too, maybe yelling _at_ him, he couldn't be sure , and then –

In a blinding flash of sapphire, the storm-wall broke and was scattered, drive before a cool, sweet wind, a blast of luminance, of chimes and fresh rain.

And there they were, kneeling on the hard floor of Obi-Wan's quarters, palms still pressed together, breath coming in heaving gasps. The young Jedi was blanched sheet-white, beads of moisture collecting at his hairline, a slightly curled lip revealing tightly clenched teeth, as though in the aftermath of colossal effort.

Anakin had whimpered, but not because he was a _wussie._ Just because that had been…. _weird._

"It's all right."

"I know, I know, I'm fine."

Mister Obi-Wan had stood, running a hand through his hair and gazing down at Anakin as though he were a smoldering hunk of charcoal.

"Sorry," the miserable boy had intoned. What had he done wrong? Was meditation not supposed to be like that? Had he caused offense?

Obi-Wan got this deep line between his brows when he was worried, and it had appeared then . But that was okay, because it signified _concern, _ and that meant Anakin wasn't the object of his disapprobation, not completely anyway. Arms crossed so tightly over his chest that he resembled a salty twist-roll like the street vendors sold in Mos Espa, the young knight forced a smile – probably meant to be reassuring – and took a deep breath.

"Its all right, Anakin. You didn't do anything wrong. And that was… unexpected. But you'd better stay with me for a while."

They both knew instinctively that this was true, though likely neither of them could have articulated the reason why. And so, he had been tailing Mister Obi-Wan all day, grateful for the implied protection from nameless,s bodiless malice, if intermittently bored by the Jedi's daily routine. The boredom had provided incentive to work on the decryption puzzle, and he was a hair's breadth away from cracking it.

He tapped one last symbol in the meandering line of scrawling numbers, and gasped.

Of course.

He'd cracked it.

Footfals, and an unsteady clacking and scuffling, sounded in the outer corridor, barely audible over the zap and hum of the r emote droid's stun blasts, the growling argeggio's of the 'saber's sweeping motion. Anakin shoved the datapad into his pocket, heart racing with triumph, with epiphany.

"Hold," Mister Obi-Wan barked at the droid, his blade hissing back into its gleaming hilt at the same moment. He whipped off his blindfold with one hand and turned toward the doorway, where a hunched figure appeared silhouetted against the bright outside illuminators.

"Garen," the young Jedi greeted the newcomer.

* * *

"Forgive the interruption," Garen Muln grunted, stumping forward with the aid of a tall cane. There was in his posture and gait an echo of Master Yoda's great antiquity, a premature frailty undergirded by simmering temper.

"It's good to see you," Obi-Wan offered, subconsciously positioning himself between his visitor and Anakin. Garen's grey eyes flitted over his shoulders to acknowledge the boy's presence, then returned to center, glinting dangerously.

"There was a time when you didn't feel obliged to _go over my head,"_ the injured padawan accused him, in a low tone.

"There was a time when you spoke to me in person," Obi-Wan countered.

Garen shifted weight painfully, clean cut features rumpling into a grimace. "What makes you think I would _want_ to teach on a praxium ship… or have anything to do with the bloody ExplorCorps?"

One of Obi-Wan's brows crept upward. "Your obsession with the topic from the age of three, perhaps?"

"It's Master Clee's prerogative to make such suggestions!" Garen roared.

Both young Jedi glanced at Anakin, who was studiously pretending to be oblivious.

"As I understand it, those suggestions _were_ made by your master," Obi-Wan pointed out, reasonably. "You haven't _spoken_ to me in weeks."

A hearty snort met this. "I can smell your influence a klick away, Kenobi. And besides, you _chosski_ head, you sent that message this morning on the non-secured open channel. My 'link is still keyed to receive duplicate transmissions."

"Oh." Vexatious, but it was too late to amend the simple oversight now.

"Oh is right." Garen poked him in the chest, emphatically. "If I wanted career advice, I would have _asked_ for it."

Some things were difficult to countenance, even for a Jedi Knight. "Oh, you're asking for it, all right," he warned, sotto voce.

A bitter chuckle. "Threatening a cripple now? Listen," Garen snarled, in a near-whisper. "I'd rather be burdened with a physical defect like this than the _abundant_ shortcomings of your character. Who appointed you universal spokesman of the Force, huh? Get off your high and mighty hee-haw."

Anakin's head snapped up at this. The subject of Garen's abuse straightened his spine, all expression sliding off his face. "I will do what _ must, Garen."_

"Then do us all a favor and _kriff off, _Obes." Infuriated, the padawan turned and limped away, cane thumping sharply against the polished floorboards with each halting step.

"Whoa," Anakin breathed when they were alone again. "Who was _that?"_

"A friend," Obi-Wan sighed.


	17. Chapter 17

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 17**

_**Questions**_

"Mister Obi-Wan sir?"

Anakin had already posed _seventeen_ separate inquiries between the second level concourse archway and the Hall of Concordant Fraternity; his guide and escort had progressed with equal rapidity from gracious goodwill into un-Jedi-like aggravation, and from thence into a perversely amused determination to _win_ the implied contest of will: for there was something in the boy's repeated questions that suggested challenge, a round and irreverent dubiety directed at everything the young Knight held dear and self-evident.

"Yes?" He wasn't about to be stymied by an _eight_ year old.

"I already asked Bant about it, but I was wondering how come the statues in here are so _choobazzi_ big."

Obi-Wan cut a direct diagonal path across the marble floor, cloak skirling in his wake. "If you asked Bant, then I am sure she provided an illuminating answer."

Anakin jogged to keep pace, small forehead rumpling. "Yeah, but she said it was to signify the greatness of purpose or something as compared to the individual, but then I said how come the guys in the statues are individuals then, cause wouldn't that kinda mean the opposite? So which of us is right?"

"Neither of you is right," came the vexed reply. _Really._

"Huh?"

A flippant hand gesture. "The statues are tall enough to prevent the ceiling collapsing to the floor, should such a disaster occur. A safety measure."

Anakin's blue eyes widened dramatically. He gazed upward, staring at the lofty dome overhead, as though rapidly calculating the vast tonnage pressing against its bland white span. "Oh," he gulped. "I didn't think of that. Is the Temple really, really old?" he added, as an alarmed afterthought.

"Ancient." Obi-Wan halted before the Archives vestibule, causing his preoccupied companion to bump into him with a small grunt of surprise.

The boy's mouth twsted comically. "Uh oh. I mean… shouldn't they do something about that? Structural reinforcements or something?"

The young Jedi peered round at the colossal columns and improbable dimensions of the soaring hall, and shrugged. "More statues," he suggested, dryly, and waved the bronzium doors open with a flick of the Force.

* * *

If Anakin remained virtually glued to his companion as they entered the library main colonnade, or if he looked nervously side to side at the towering stacks of holobooks, eyes tracing their narrow aisles upward toward the distant barrel-arched roof, Obi-Wan pretended not to notice.

"May I be of assistance?" the head Archivist murmured, materializing from a side alcove with a whisper of embroidered robes. Her silver hair was constricted in a rictus-tight knot, her dark eyes sharp and glittering as ever.

"Yes, thank you… I need the works of Trebalus Magnus. Including the posthumously codified journals."

Madame Nu raised one thin white brow at him, gaze flicking momentarily downward to encompass his unlikely charge, and then gave a terse nod. "I shall have one of the droids fetch them for you." She executed a neat pirouette and sailed away upon silent feet, floor length cassock barely skimming the polished floor tiles.

The Tatooinian boy made a small, soundless whistle. "Whoa," he whispered.

"Yes, well. Madame Nu is a formidable guardian of knowledge." And in Obi-Wan's private, never-voiced opinion, far better suited to her role than she would be a guardian of _peace._

It took a few minutes for the hovering circulation 'bot to appear bearing a slim pile of holobooks in its spatulate hands. "Your volumes," it burbled politely, wobbling slightly in midair as its repulsors shifted to stand-by.

"_Wizard,"_ Anakin remarked as the thing droned away again empty-handed. "Would I ever love to take one of _those_ apart!"

Obi-Wan chuckled darkly . "Don't let Jocasta Nu hear you express that ambition."

* * *

The incessant stream of questions did not cease even during noon meal, though it was punctuated by intermittent silence as Anakin eagerly spooned mandrangea bean stew and bread into his mouth.

"So, did you grow up with Troon Palo? Like all those kids I met the other day?"

"Yes. Up to a certain age, anyway."

Anakin chewed and swallowed, gulping visibly. "So…. You _never ever_ saw your real family?"

A predictable misunderstanding. "The Jedi are my family."

This clarification was dismissed out of hand. "I mean your _real_ family, from wherever you were born. Don't you even _know _ them? Your Mom?"

Obi-Wan laid his utensil down. "…We've met."

The tow-headed by scowled, contemplating his food. "But didn't you ever _care?_ Didn't you had wish you had a Mom? I bet you did. You _had _to."

The young Knight exhaled slowly, chiseling the contours of his reply. "I promise you: all the things which a parent provides, in your experience, the Temple younglings have. And as for the particulars … one does not miss that of which one has little or no recollection, or no experience. "

"Huh." Anakin's third glass of blue milk disappeared with a ferocious alacrity. "Kitster always used to tease me about not having a dad. But I don't care. I dunno what the fuss is about, even."His shoulders squared and his chin came up, defiantly.

"Then you have context for understanding."

"Maybe." A short hesitation, then, "But maybe he's right. Is he?"

Off guard, Obi-Wan retreated a full mental half-pace. _How would I know?_

Anakin seemed to hear the very thought; or perhaps he had spoken aloud after all; or perhaps the Force somehow betrayed him, for it worked in mysterious ways. "Cause of Mister Qui-Gon, I mean. I know you said he was your teacher, but on the ship when we were coming here I could tell you were pretty upset. Like I would be if Mom got hurt." The boy paused, introspectively, oblivious to his trespass upon sacred ground. "I guess I wouldn't mind saying _Master_ so much if it meant I cared about that person."

_Focus, focus, focus._ "Let us say this much: from Kitster's own point of view, there is something amiss in not knowing his father." _Better. Deflect and regroup._

"Yeah, I guess so." Spoon clinking against empty dish. Undaunted, Anakin pressed onward. "So, what happens to the kids here that don't get to be Jedi? 'Cause Zhoa said not everyone gets to be Knighted and save the galaxy."

Obi-Wan snorted. "Saving the galaxy seems a bit grandiose. There is a saying: _we come to serve._ Sometmes that service takes a very humble form."

"Yeah, but what about the other kids?" his young companion insisted, not to be thwarted. "Do they go back to their families?"

"An exceptional few return to their homeworlds… but most find a place within the Service Corps. And the Jedi _are_ a family; we are at home wherever the Force dwells."

Anakin sank into his plastoid molded seat, shoulders hunching. "I wanna send another message to Mom. Is that okay?"

There were many, many problematic aspects to that request – and yet Obi-Wan found himself assenting. "We can make a detour through the communications center on our way back to quarters," he decided, despite himself. A pang of some softer emotion twisted below his ribs, mellowing his next words to a quiet undertone. "You do understand that the planet's orbital position likely prevents her from replying."

The boy's mouth turned down at the corners, and he nodded. "Yeah, I know."

* * *

Ban Yaro was close to Obi-Wan's own age, though of a less reserved temperament by far. His shock of red hair stood erect upon his head like a burning Kasha bush. "I routed the transmission through a subsector amplification hub and bounced it off the local Ord base receptor site – that should give it some extra umph, but those two solar foci make it a real vetch to punch through a decent signal."

Lingering politely out of hearing range as Anakin made his rambling report via the Temple's advanced comm array, Obi-Wan nodded in thanks. "Your expertise is appreciated." Though the gritty details he might easily have been spared without regret.

The tech expert bounced upon his heels, hands folded behind his back. "So…. Is that the new padawan?"

An aggrieved exhalation. "I see the gossip mill is as inaccurate as ever."

Ban Yaro's grin was not comely, but it split his long face into two distinct and amused halves. "You have no idea, Kenobi."

The young Knight held up a hand. "In that case, ignorance is bliss. Anakin is presently under the protection of the Order. His history is… complicated." An authoritative scowl. "And idle speculation within this Temple does not contribute either to truth or to _discipline_."

A deep bow of apology on Ban Yaro's part served to close the topic from further examination.

* * *

"Whoa….._rugged,"_ Anakin reverently breathed, lapsing into a slack-jawed and most welcome quiet.

Above them, around them, the ten thousand star systems danced in slow procession, delineated in crisp light, hung with a glittering tracery of hyper-routes and sector boundaries, pendant in darkness but sweeping a regal train of comet dust and the pomp of icon embedded holo-data behind them as they rotated. The map room's dome was invisible behind the bright display, its curved walls blanketed in artificial night. If not for the handrails reassuringly present to touch, they might have been suspended in the void, peering into the galaxy's throbbing heart from furthest space.

One of them yearned to see every planet represented here: the named and the unnamed, the famous and the obscure, the beautiful and the ravaged, civilized and savage, familiar and exotic. The other watched the countless stars and their nestled worlds with a more seasoned eye: the Rims –even in holographic depiction – seemed tattered, the fraying hem of a royal mantle, the manifold places where the delicate embroidery of civilization was slowly, inexorably unraveling; the Core, jewel-like yet corrupt, a pulsating convocation of wealth and glory, a supernova of power waiting to implode; the far-flung midsector regions, the Republic's varied and often malcontent former colonies, conjoined to its cause during the historical expansion period but never fully absorbed into the dominant and now effete Core culture; the unknown regions marked in dull violet beyond the nebulous boundaries of the galaxy as it was _known._

Beyond the _known_lay the _unknown_, that which was shrouded in mystery rather than Darkness: some philosophers dared to wonder whether the Force itself might be _different_ in some postulated _other_ realm, some galaxy far far away and indefinitely remote in the future. Or whether it might be the same and yet _unknown,_ whether a world or a plethora of worlds might exist, somewhere, in which the sentient beings remained utterly ignorant of their own birthright, or called it by fallacious names. Or else disdained to study its ways, calling such wisdom the superstition of a bygone age. It was far from _implausible. _ Indeed, such a dystopian scenario seemed almost… likely.

Armchair speculation, to be sure – but the very notion underscored a grave corollary: there was _nothing_ more precious, more worthy of protection and perpetuation, that the Jedi heritage. Knowledge of the Force, commitment to its service, to compassion and illumination: these were the priceless dross to be skimmed off a millenium's convoluted labors, off the overflowing, perhaps stagnant cup of civilization itself. Even if the Republic were somehow, impossibly, to fall into ruin – even if the Unknown were to swallow up the ten thousand star systems in one cataclysmic conquest – _this_ alone would be worth preserving, at any cost.

Wherever Light kindled, it ought to be fanned to pellucid brightness, a defiant torch set in defiance of the Dark, as a symbol of hope to all those who came after.

A memory:

_Qui-Gon, crouching upon his balcony amid scattered botanical specimens and a plastoid bag of organic-enriched soil, long fingers pressing the sprouting root ball of an exotic orchid into a pot recently occupied by another of its kind._

_Isn't that rather disrespectful of the previous tenant, Master?_

_Why? It is the way of the universe for one generation to supplant another. _

_Yes, well, here I thought the Orchidaceae Chandrilasis was the apple of your eye – yet you've appointed a successor while the deceased isn't even cold on the compost pile yet._

_Don't be morbid, Obi-Wan. And hand me that watering can._

_Yes, Master. _

_There is no better way to honor the Living Force than to do this: Life renews itself, Padawan. Death is merely an occasion for a new beginning._

_I shall be sure to remember that after Master Windu makes good on his threat in the Council chamber earlier today._

_Brat. But know this: I rely upon you to recall this wisdom when the time does come._

"Mister Obi-Wan?"

Memory coalesced into the present moment, and a small hand tugging urgently upon his wide cloak sleeve. "It's really cold in here…. And I kinda have to _go. _ You know." A pair of bright blue eyes peered earnestly up at him through the surrounding gloom.

Chuckling, he waved the projector off; the lights came up automatically, revealing Anakin bouncing uncomfortably upon one leg.

"This way," Obi-Wan commanded, taking charge of the crisis in a manner befitting a guardian of the peace and a Jedi Knight.

They scampered out the door, leaving the known, the unknowable, and the ponderous uncertainties of the future collapsed into a single static blur and a fading chime-note.


	18. Chapter 18

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 18**

_**Speculation**_

"What?" Torbb Bakk'ile's stentorian voice buzzed with static over the commlink. "I don't owe you _that _ many favors, Kenobi."

Obi-Wan's brows rose, delicately. "But you suffer under a misapprehension. I am _doing_ you a favor. The boy is a mechanical genius. He could amend your droid problem."

A hearty snort from the other end of the link. "You want me to babysit in exchange for tech support?"

"A good diplomat knows when to negotiate, Torbb."

"Hm. And does your little protégé _know_ you employ his talents as an underhanded bargaining chip?"

The young Jedi scowled at his device. "Do you want that decrepit circuit board of yours fixed or not?"

"Fine. Bring him by. And if he succeeds, I'll take him out to the CoCo district and stuff him silly on confections of his choice, then hand him back over."

"Your threats do not intimidate me, Bakk'ile." Although, he had to admit, private experience _did_ speak to the disturbing effect of refined sugar overdose on a juvenile metabolism.

Still, cruelty was forbidden to a Jedi, and Torrb was not such a flouter of tradition as all _that._

"Live dangerously, then," the enormous Knight snipped. "See you in fifteen standard. And make sure his nose is wiped before he gets here."

* * *

The threshold opened onto another threshold, mere delineation of physical space opening onto a limbo between life and death, a "netherworld" between states of being. Behind him, bustling tidily about their business, the droids and apprentice healers and medical staff asserted the claims of life, of birth and growing and healing, of cycles and renewal. Before him, shrouded in ghastly white blankets, flanked by mournful and faceless monitors, lay Qui-Gon – or the Jedi master's body – suspended between this reality and the next. Beyond, neither here nor there, but ubiquitous and hidden, lay the Force, to which all things returned at their unmaking, at their death.

Gross matter would crumble into fragile ash; spirit would then be at one with the source of all.

Some of the more daring philosophers had suggested that the individual – the man truly _rooted_ in the Living Force itself, might somehow endure past that dissolution of body and soul; that _self_ and _Force_ were not essentially antipodes of being, but complementary modes; that in extinction, a true servant would grow powerful beyond imagination, blessed beyond reckoning.

Obi-Wan had never dared ask Qui-Gon Jinn what his opinion upon the matter might be. Not since Tahl, anyway.

Cowl drawn up, arms crossed tight across his chest, he gazed upon the pallid shell of his former mentor and realized, with a bitter pang, that there was a _vast_ multitude of questions he had never asked, an ocean of uncharted territory within their sometimes tempestuous, yet strangely intimate teaching relationship. He had known the man and yet not known the man, demanded _all_ and received more, given _all_ and yet never exhausted the wells of his own loyalty. And yet, so much remained unspoken, unasked, unclear.

Nearly three years ago, he had been made a Jedi – in the true and fullest sense. Today, he wakened to another knowledge. He was a Jedi of _this man's_ line. Or ilk, for Qui-Gon had never stood easily in the lineage of his own master. And when Qui-Gon returned to the Force, he would be _the_ Jedi in that line. Or of that peculiar charism that marked the Jinn way. He was marked, formed painstakingly by hand and stamped with a subtle artisan's glyph: teacher, student, the Force – these are one.

And yet how could that be, when he still _knew_ so little?

A memory:

_Qui-Gon, kneeling serenely across the guttering meditation candle, stalwart in this one, and only this one rule: that they would endure in such exercise of patience and attention until the wick and flame were utterly spent._

_Ours is to do, not to know._

_You always say that, Master, but then why do you always have the answer?_

_Not every answer implies knowledge. Some are merely commands, guideposts along a road. I need not have knowledge of a place to visit it, or to navigate my way there, need I?_

_No, but that's generally the sort of place where they start shooting at us in the docking bay._

_Focus, Obi-Wan. I am telling you that an answer does not necessarily imply knowledge, as such._

_Yes, Master, I'm beginning to think not._

_Padawan. Perhaps in your case the adage ought to be 'ours is to listen, not to speak?' _

_I'm sorry, Master. But I still don't understand._

_Exactly. Nor is it understanding that you ought to seek of the Force. Look instead for guidance; let it indwell you, direct your actions, chart your steps. We come to serve; understanding follows later. It is called the path of destiny, not the book of destiny, and this for good reason: those who have sought knowledge of the Force before obedience often strayed far from the Way. _

_But knowledge is one of the three pillars!_

_Pillars support what already stands, young one. It is questions that build anew; and questions spring from ignorance. Do not resent your ignorance, nor fear it. It is the seed of true wisdom. And a day may come when the Jedi will dearly require such wisdom._

_But I still don't – _

_Have you been attending, Padawan?_

…_.Yes, Master. I will remember._

"Come to haunt me for my past sins?" a familiar voice rasped at his elbow. Ben To Li's bony hand settled upon his cloaked shoulder with a firm pressure.

Lowering his hood, the young Knight spared the senior healer a wan smile. "You should be so fortunate."

"Humph." Ben To shepherded him away from the open doorframe, steering him away down the hall. "I've yet to have my morning tea... spate of rashes in the clan dormitories. Apparently that chosski Agrion Pertha took it upon himself to plant poison okkra hybrid in the outdoor herbarium without notifying anyone… and you know how the younglings enjoy a good romp in the shrubbery. Come, come, I can see you've come for my steadying influence, you hapless wretch."

"Actually, Master, I've come with a possible answer for you."

That brought old Ben To up short in his tracks. "Bant!" he called. "Take over the shift – I've business."

His Mon Calamari padawan appeared from an adjacent corridor, offering her mentor a demure bow even as her globular, liquid-glossed eyes met Obi-Wan's in a brief moment of curiosity. "Yes, Master Li."

The healer's desk was strewn with therm-insulated shipping crates, holo-files, and the detritus of many previous tea brewings. Obi-Wan cast a critical eye upon the mess and took up position in the worn chair opposite, while his host puttered about with the ceramplast self-heating pot and chipped bowls.

"An answer, hm? I'd say you've come to gloat," he remarked, without turning round. "You can wipe that smug look off your face."

The younger man leaned back, tense spine uncoiling into the slack contours of his seat. "When scientific expertise fails, look to the sages of yore," he told Ben To's back. "Scholarship trumps invasive meddling once again."

The healer thrust a hot bowl in his direction, accidentally sloshing scalding tea over crisp trousers. "Ah dear, the ravages of age…. My hands are not so steady as they once were." He chuckled darkly, adroitly pulling a handcloth from beneath the nearest precarious stack of clutter without disturbing a single item. "…You were saying?"

Obi-Wan rubbed at his burned knee. "Ah. Um, yes. I think I've found the answer in the works of Trebalus Magnus. I'd read his complete opus before, but I just now recollected certain insights, germane to… the present moment."

"You don't say," Ben To grunted, savoring his tea. "I shan't ask what motivated you to exhume such obscure sources in the first place."

The young Jedi perched his tea upon one corner of the desk, gaze seeking past the pale wall to some invisible center. "All those years ago – when I first… met… Jenna Zan Arbor, when I returned to the Temple I mean… I suppose I wanted to understand why she was so _wrong._ So obsessed and yet delusional. I read extensively during the time I couldn't train."

Ben To twirled his pointed beard between thumb and forefinger, sharp perceptive eyes softening. "Ah yes. Of course. "

Their mutual attention snapped back to the problem at hand. "Chakora Seva was in Trebalus' teaching line, by the way; he was a warrior and an active Knight while Trebalus was practically a recluse, spending most his time in private meditation and research. During his frequent retreats at the Dantooine Enclave – during its peak epoch – he wrote a great deal concerning the midichlorians in his private journals. They were a subject of some debate within the Order at the time."

"Yes," the senior Jedi concurred. "And still are within the healing community. Now tell me how he has illuminated our difficulty here and now."

Obi-Wan leaned forward, radiating banked intensity. "He did not hold the majority opinion, Master. According to him, the midichlorians are not that means _by which_ we feel the Force's influence, but rather a result of the same. He likened the Force to an ever-flowing current, and those who drink deeply of it to deeply-carved riverbeds. The midis… well, he likens them to silt or sediment. A kind of natural _trace _ of that immaterial connection."

"And he accounted for the correlation of midichlorians in living cells with Force abilities how?"

"In the same way, really. Those with a strong connection naturally accrue more within their organic structure as they open themselves fully to the universal energy; those who do not so habitually commune, predictably accumulate fewer within their cells. But the part of his theory that arrested my attention is this: he claimed that where the … _flow_ of the Force is thwarted, like a river dammed or blockaded, then the 'sediment' builds higher and higher. Until a sort of breaking point is reached."

"A rather _physical _ metaphor for one so contemptuous of the "mechanistic" perspective."

"Perhaps… but it does make sense. He enumerates three conditions under which an individual born into the light might experience such a thing. In some kinds of great illness or injury, in certain types of …forbidden _imprisonment,_ and in the rare case of unfulfilled but important destiny."

Ben To's silvering brows formed a high double arch above his aquiline nose. "Indeed?"

"It does account for the phenomena, Master." _Qui-Gon, inanimate, on hiatus from life and the Force at once; himself, chained and collared in the thanatosine cell after the debacle on Melida-Daan; Anakin, cruelly debarred from claiming his birthright by dint of slavery. All cut off in one way or another rom that which permeated and bound the cosmos together . "_ It explains the increased midichlorian counts you've observed."

"And the consequences of such…. frustration, for lack of a better term," Ben To mused, "Could be dramatic. Is that the corollary? Every dam eventually bursts, hm?"

Obi-Wan nodded, gravely. "Though I cannot say what that means… in the particular."

The older man's dark eyes glinted. "Nor can I. But I thank you for your scholarship and your insight."

His young counterpart's mouth quirked at one corner, instantly dispelling the shared weight of foreboding. "In that case, Master, perhaps you would care to reconsider my previously expressed opinion on the third siege of Yaxel. Since you are in such a broad-minded, amenable frame of mind."

Ben To slammed his tea bowl down with a dismissive snort. "Pshaw! I said _insight, _ not delusional pontification. I'd sooner make you my successor in these Halls than give credence to a _jot_ of your twaddle concerning the Second Dynasty, Kenobi!"

The subject of this abuse raised self-deprecatory hands. "There is no reasoning with the unreasonable, I suppose."

"Out." The healer chivvied him out the door and from thence toward the main exit. "Go inflict yourself on others more worthy. "

The young Knight fled the scene, sparing Bant a swift lop-sided smirk and a wink as he passed through the foyer and into less hostile territory, leaving the unfathomable in Ben To Li's capable hands.


	19. Chapter 19

**Legacy 5**

* * *

**Chapter 19**

_**Crossroads**_

"The short answer," Mace Windu rumbled, baritone edged with warning, "is that _it's none of your concern,_ Kenobi."

"Yes, Master. And the long answer?"

They paced shoulder to shoulder along the groomed perimeter of the outdoor aoli colonnades, a pollutant-laden breeze stirring both the stately green columns and the hems of their dark cloaks.

The Korun Jedi sighed. "Is even shorter: _no."_

Obi-Wan balked. "No?"

The breeze gusted and died down, leaving them becalmed at the intersection of two footpaths, the towering pillars seeming to lean in subtly, eager to eavesdrop. Purple shadow criss-crossed the courtyard, dusky lines drawn upon gravel and groundcover, exquisitely shaped shrubbery and the bare, knotted roots of the aoli trees.

Mace turned toward the younger man, dark mien somber. "No. The boy will not be trained. The Council has no intention of inducting him into the Order as an initiate." He paused. "He is too old."

Impatience contracted the young Knight's brows. "Forgive me, but there are numerous precedents for making an exception to that clause. Quinlan Vos –"

"This _boy_ is not Quinlan Vos. He is unique," the Councilor interrupted. "His case is _exceptional."_

The furrow between Obi-Wan's brows deepened. "Surely there is no question about his potential?"

Instead of making a direct reply, the senior Jedi paced onward, forcing his companion to keep pace. They turned onto a diagonal path cutting across the meditation garden's central expanse. "His _potential_ is unparalleled in the history of the Order. Do you understand?"

A quiet nod.

"Good. And a Sith _acolyte_ is actively seeking him, most likely for recruitment. This child is not merely a … vergence. He may very well be _the_ vergence."

Obi-Wan's heart thumped against his sternum. "The Council thinks he is … the Chosen One?"

"It would be the height of presumption to make such a claim. But this much is clear: the boy is dangerous. To train him would be the equivalent of developing a doomsday weapon. And if the Dark Side once again has servants in flesh and blood, if the Sith have truly begun a resurgence… then that is the _last_ thing this galaxy needs."

They paced onward, one with head high and gaze hooded, the other with downcast eyes and a troubled mien. "Then what will become of him?"

Mace exhaled again, one broad hand reaching out to rest upon the younger man's shoulder. "This is not a decision I_ relish,_ son."

"What will become of him?" There was anger now, shimmering in the air between them.

The Korun's fathomless eyes narrowed. "He is not your concern any longer. You have done a great service by discovering him, by preventing the Sith capturing him, by bringing him back to the Temple. Your role is _finished."_

The sentinel grotto waited upon a sign of acquiescence, of obedience.

Color rose in the young Knight's face. "I beg forgiveness, Master, for my arrogance…. But he is my concern. The Force made him my concern. I cannot… relinquish my involvement simply because –"

"Simply because the _Council_ commands it?" Mace growled. "I sense Qui-Gon's defiance in you."

Obi-Wan dropped to one knee, in the traditional posture of humility. "It is not my intention to defy the Council, Master."

But Mace merely chuckled, darkly. "It's not your intention to _yield,_ either." He gazed upward, at the waving tips of the aoli grove, a double line of quivering spear-tips. Shadow and light swung, pendulum-like, between the mobile lattice, spattering them in a dizzing chiaroscuro. "If you come before us again," he said, softly, "Leave your _anger_ behind. I can see you have yet to _face_ it properly."

His long, sure strides carried him away, back to the lower level concourses and the soaring interior Halls of the Temple, while his supplicant remained kneeling amid the melancholy folds of his own cloak, painted in piebald disarray by the shifting afternoon light.

* * *

"Whoa! It was a piece of cake," Anakin rambled, young voice rendered into a treble squeak by the poor quality connection. "Those astromechs have this whole interface sector in their processor, you know for like integrating a navcomp for a starship, but if you take out the bilateral routing protocol and fuse in an extra quantum-loop circuit then you can like program them with self-augmenting AI, like a protocol unit or something. So like you could totally make an astromech into a _pet._ Do you think there's an extra one I can work on somewhere?"

Obi-Wan ran a distracted hand through his hair. "No," he replied, tersely. _Stars' end… a pet?_ "Droids are tools, and valuable resources - not playthings."

This repressive answer was promptly ignored. "So now Knight Bakk'ile's gonna take me out into the city! Wizard! I can't wait. We've got a rugged speeder and she's gonna show me the airlanes and this whole district for commerce and manufacturing and stuff and some of the buildings here are five _hundred_ stories tall, did you know that? Or even more, that's just the levels above zero which is kinda random anyway cause nobody's ever seen the surface do you think we could go down there sometime it can't be any worse than Mos Espa and I bet there's like choobazzi wicked scrappiles and stuff and – "

"Anakin."

"Yeah?"

_Are you aware that you stand in danger of permanent exile or imprisonment, for the sake of the greater good? Are you aware that you are not a slave, nor a person, but merely a danger? Are you aware that the duracrete slugs down there at Coruscant's foundation levels could swallow you whole and spit out the bones? Are you aware how very very very much you have still to learn? "…_ You will listen to Torbb and do as she says. As though she were your mother. Understood?"

"Um.. sure. But Mom never minds too much if I do what I want."

"Neither does she carry a lightsaber, my young friend."

A significant hesitation as this idea sank in. "Uh, okay. I promise."

"The city is like the desert. It must be respected."

"Okay. I get it."

"No, you don't," the young Jedi grimaced. "But I accept your word of honor, nonetheless."

"_Okay,"_ the boy muttered, truculently.

It happened before he was consciously aware of it: a sharp mental tug as though upon the leash of a frisking and ill-trained pup, a remonstrance spoken without words, along some invisible but undeniable tether connecting them. He could even _feel_ Anakin wince in shame.

"May the Force be with you," he ended the transmission, formally. Because anything else would have occasioned awkward… questions.

* * *

A memory:

_The Force works in mysterious ways. This is because it expresses itself through living beings… and we are all a mystery to one another, in some degree._

_If that is true, Master, then why do you seem always to know my very thoughts?_

_Alas, Obi-Wan – you are perhaps an open holo-volume. However, the contents of that book do on occasion prove utterly astounding._

* * *

Beneath the foundation level, there was no ambivalent melding of twilight shadows and lingering sunset; here, _void_ reigned supreme, primordial and uncontested, emptiness coalesced into cold stone veined with glittering black. The two Temple guards who stood hooded and alert at the entrance to the thanatosine enclosure dipped their cowled heads in curiosity or respect as he passed. There was no chance of discerning their identities in this realm of smothering blankness; they might as well all have been Force-blind and deaf, the traditional masks signifying not merely anonymity but impotence.

He was growing _used_ to this obscene place – and yet he still stopped to steady himself against the tunnel wall as he penetrated deeper. Blackness swirled at the edges of vision, light faded, the world imploded into a meaningless pantomime of shapes and colors, essence veiled and swallowed whole by the ebony rock.

The Sith was still pacing his cell. Did he ever cease his enraged peregrination? Did he never _tire,_ even here in this lifeless suffocating prison? Did he somehow nurture a private flame, a brazier of hatred over which he warmed his bloodstained hands?

The creature had its exotically tattooed back to him when he approached. Obi-Wan raised a hand and slammed it open-palmed against the scarlet energy barrier, the sharp jolt of pain that ran up his arm through elbow and shoulder almost welcome, a _clarifying_ jolt. The shimmering field sparked and snapped, causing the incarcerated warrior to pivot, glaring.

His lips drew back over crooked teeth and he took a single swaggering step forward, bringing them nose to nose across the translucent red wall. "Still _angry,_ Jedi?" he taunted his visitor. The sound was muffled, but each syllable rasped out with a deadly precision, a barbed projectile aimed with relish at any perceived chink in the other's armor.

The young Jedi crossed his arms and raised his chin, feet falling into a battle stance. "Yes," he answered.

The Sith leered. "Then you understand. We have something in _common."_

"The _difference_," his interlocutor corrected him, "is this: I will conquer my anger. You have already been consumed alive by yours."

Red sigils twisted and squirmed as the Dark acolyte smirked. "No: I _command_ my hatred, while you grovel in fear before your own power. You are weak, Jedi; your true name is _cowardice."_

"And yours is _conceit."_

The Sith laughed in his face. "SO says the mewling whelp who dares mock that which he does not understand, and who confronts his foe from behind a barricade." He slammed a fist into the crimson veil between them, gritting jagged teeth as the consequent energy surge tore through his limbs. Static discharge rippled about him like lightning, arcing between his cranial horns. He panted, licking his lips.

Obi-Wan raised a supercilious brow. "When last we met without a _barrier_ between us, it was not I who regretted the occasion." His gaze flicked to the mutilated stump of the prisoner's right arm, where the stasis cuff blipped steadily.

"You do not grieve that I made your decrepit master choke on his own blood?" the painted warrior sneered. "I trampled his haughty Jedi pride beneath my heel, and yours with him. You will never be _pure_ again. You are _mine."_

A mirthless breath of laughter. "Then why are you in chains? I think you _want_ to be held here; after all, surely this is preferable to crawling back to your cruel master with a report of _failure._ What would happen should you appear empty-handed and bearing the brand of your shame, howsoever abjectly you licked his boots? Would he torture you until you howled for reprieve like a whipped akk? Would you beg? Would you writhe at his feet? Which would you hate more: Darkness or _yourself_?"

The Sith clawed at the sizzling energy field with both hands, throwing back his head as his nerves spasmed in swift agony. He staggered back, face contorted in pain, in perverse enjoyment. "Go watch your beloved Master _die_ and crumble to ash, Jedi," he growled. "You are beautiful in your sorrow, as in wrath." He thrust his good hand outward in an obscene gesture.

Obi-Wan turned his back upon the spectacle. _Deep breath. Center. Release._ Without the Force , the hot pit in his gut was merely that – a contraction of muscle, a bitter acidic reflex, a thing of gross matter. Emotion was nothing; attachment an illusion, anger a thing weak and cringing, unworthy of recognition.

"You are mine," his enemy laughed, behind him.

"You have _marked_ me," he replied, levelly. "But I am not yours, nor ever will I be."

He swept out, not looking back.

* * *

A memory:

_ Qui-Gon, patiently applying bacta-infused gauze to angry saber-welts and a set of split knuckles._

_I thought we were done with this, Padawan._

_I did not fight on my own behalf, or even yours , Master. I obeyed._

_You have a strange way of honoring my wishes, Obi-Wan. I said there was to be no more private dueling. And yet here we are yet again._

_It wasn't private! I took him in the practice salles; there were a score of witnesses. He maligned Master Seva's teachings and disrespected the Jedi path. It wasn't a personal altercation._

_Then why is your person so lamentably battered, hm?_

_His is worse._

_For now. No – don't look at me that way, Padawan. If you will take it upon yourself to champion the sanctity of all tradition, by the strength of your solitary will, then surely you will embrace the part of tradition encompassing the discipline of wayward apprentices. Hold still, I'm not done yet._

_I'm truly sorry, Master._

_I believe you; but that is not enough. The Path is difficult, and it is not my role to make it easier for you._

_I can do better; I will! I've improved already - I can learn to control my anger._

_And that is a beginning you are still making. However: if you would truly be a Jedi, you must not merely control but _transform _ your passions. There is no other Way except that of failure, or Darkness._

_I won't Turn, Master. I promise. _

_I know, young one, I know. But you won't forget this lesson again soon, either. Come with me… we have a very _serious_ discussion to undertake._

…_Yes, Master._


End file.
